Imagine if someone in the White House press room asked Obama why his health insurance websites have a phone number which spells out “Fuc*Yo”. As a follow-up imaginary press person could have asked Obama who ordered that “F*ckYo” phone number, when that person will fired, and at what time tomorrow that phone number would be changed? Instead, Obama had his pillows fluffed as in the 2008 campaign.

It’s a miracle that Speaker Boehner and the House Republican conference have held so firm in the face of so much Big Media Obama protection. They deserve a salute for finally fighting.

——————————————————————————————————-

Update: Barack Obama today demanded that Congress “pay the bills”. But Obama is not paying the bills. Obama is deficit spending and passing on the bills to many future generations.

Totalitarians always say, as Fidel Castro does, that “once the people vote why vote again?” It’s the “one man, one vote, one time” crap we hear from those in power in totalitarian states like Iran. Lately Barack Obama has taken to saying the same thing about ObamaCare. It’s “settled law” says Barack ‘so shut up and get in line.’ As if. In the United States we have the right to resist unjust laws or just plain ol’ stupid laws.

We used to have a big divide over the very legal system of slavery. Slavery was “settled law”. The “settled law” became less settled over time. In fact it became quite unsettling. The legal system and the legislative system attempted several compromises and gimmicks to settle what was “settled law”. Nothing worked. Result: civil war which ended the system of settled law on slavery.

There was another civil war in all but name that was most dramatically fought out in the streets of Chicago. This war was also over a “settled law”. In fact it was more than “settled law”. This law was chiseled into the granite blocks of the American Constitution. Two thirds of Congress approved of this new law (287 -100 in the House and a voice vote in the Senate) added onto the foundational Constitution (as the 18th Amendment) along with two thirds of all the states. That is as “settled law” as it can possibly be. Result: Repudiation of this constitutional amendment (via the 21st Amendment) but only after the “settled law” birthed organized crime on a national level, dire violence, and national law enforcement agencies which have never undone the damage wrought by the “settled law” known as Prohibition.

True blue leftists that we had been for so long we recall fighting valiantly against “settled law” often over the years. If you are now or have ever been a Democrat since 1960 do you recall how many times we have demanded that this or that war be “defunded”? We certainly recall those festivals of protest we attended to demand that the House of Representatives, which until 1994 was controlled exclusively by Democrats, “DEFUND” a war being fought at the time. Whether it was Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq or many of those wars in-between those wars were “settled law” and yet many of our fellow Democrats protested in the streets and demanded the war be “defunded”. Remember?

There have been plenty of times when we have gorged ourselves in our Constitutional right to petition our government with our grievances. On issue after issue we have fought “settled law” until it is unsettled and defunct. Yet now we find those who alongside us fought “settled law” repeatedly now defending Barack Obama on his abomination ObamaCare and attacking any attempted to fight this allegedly “settled law”.

“President Obama indignantly insists that GOP attempts to abolish or amend Obama­care are unseemly because it is “settled” law, having passed both houses of Congress, obtained his signature and passed muster with the Supreme Court.

Article I of the Constitution grants the legislative power entirely to Congress. Under what constitutional principle has Obama unilaterally amended the law? Yet when the House of Representatives undertakes a constitutionally correct, i.e., legislative, procedure for suspending the other mandate — the individual mandate — this is portrayed as some extra-constitutional sabotage of the rule of law. Why is tying that amendment to a generalized spending bill an outrage, while unilateral amendment by the executive (with a Valerie Jarrett blog item for spin) is perfectly fine?”

“First of all America has gone through shutdowns before. Andrew Stiles notes in National Review that the U.S government has shut down 17 times since 1976. The vast majority of those shutdowns happened when the Democrats controlled the House. They happened under Jimmy Carter over abortion policy (remember when that divided the Democrats?) and under Ronald Reagan, mostly about budget priorities — including efforts to nix Reagan’s pet projects (sound familiar?). During the 21-day face-off between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, unemployment fell slightly and America emerged with a welfare reform deal. Not too bad.

Those shutdowns remind us that U.S. politics have always been partisan and rancorous — as the two-party system was established with the intention of being. Honest, heated debate is part of being a democratic nation.”

“People turning on the news this week came away with the knowledge that it was about Obamacare and kept hearing that Democrats wouldn’t negotiate. They also learned that for some reason the President didn’t want Word War II veterans to tour their own memorial, and Harry Reid won’t turn the funding on for cancer clinical trials at the NIH. Oh, and the rollout for Obamacare is one big glitch.

Late yesterday came word that the Amber Alert system has been shut down, but Barack Obama’s federally funded golf course remains open. Catholics are openly fretting that priests on military bases could get arrested for performing mass — at the very least they are prohibited from doing so.”

Big Media is trying to rescue both ObamaCare and Obama but having trouble walking and chewing this particular grungy piece of gum. According to a CNN poll released today Big Media is successful in placing the blame on Republicans but it is a victory with diminished returns diminishing every day:

“According to the poll, 63% of those questioned say they are angry at the Republicans for the way they have handled the shutdown.

“But the Democrats are not getting off scot-free. Fifty-seven percent of Americans are also angry at the way the Democrats are dealing with the shutdown. And a 53% majority say they are also angry at President Obama,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “It looks like there is more than enough blame to go around and both parties are being hurt by the shutdown.”

The CNN poll results are similar to those from a new Pew Research Center poll also released Monday and surveys from Gallup and CBS News/New York Times surveys conducted last week, which indicate slightly more people blaming – or angry at – Republicans than Democrats or the president for the shutdown.”

Big Media and Barack Obama have consistently sold themselves the lie that ObamaCare is popular. It’s not. ObamaCare must be stopped and Republicans are doing what the American people want. Recently Todd Purdum (husband of Dee Dee Myers) who used to write “news” articles not opinion pieces for the New York Times went hysterically berserk against Republicans for fighting against ObamaCare and blaming the GOP for the “shutdown”. A day later Purdum took sedatives and wrote an article which merits attention. Purdum, after his breakdown, wrote about why Obama and ObamaCare are in the trouble they are in:

“Twenty years ago, when he was trying to persuade Bill and Hillary Clinton that universal health care was a politically unrealistic goal, the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan repeated one insistent warning: Sweeping, historic laws don’t pass barely. “They pass 70-to-30,’’ he said, “or they fail.”

Four years ago, when he was trying to persuade Barack Obama that he would pay a terrible price for jamming health care reform through a reluctant Congress on a partisan vote, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel begged his boss to settle for a vastly scaled-down plan.”

ObamaCare did not pass 70 to 30. It passed even as Scott Brown won in bluest of blue state Massachusetts on the promise to be a vote against ObamaCare. ObamaCare passed on a strictly party-line vote. Republicans and conservatives opposed the law as did many like us who saw ObamaCare as Chicago gangland extortion stripping taxpayers of money to enrich insurance companies – the Obama government played gangland enforcer Frank Nitti in Prohibition era Chicago.

“Ever since Obamacare’s stormy passage in early 2011, Democrats have been waiting anxiously for the program to go into effect and hoping that a dose of reality would calm the partisan battles over the health insurance plan. Once everything was up and running, they hoped, skeptical Americans would see that Obamacare was a good idea all along — and reward the party that brought it to them.

That’s looking unlikely, at least in the short run. Last week’s glitch-filled rollout of Obamacare’s health exchange websites, combined with Republicans’ furious refusal to accept the program as what President Obama calls “settled law,” confirmed something political strategists in both parties had already predicted: The war over Obamacare is far from over.

“It’s unlikely that the Affordable Care Act will be widely popular until people have real experience with it — until it becomes the new normal,” a leading Democratic strategist told me. “We’re talking about years, not weeks or months.” [snip]

“The 2014 election will be the Gettysburg of this struggle — the deciding battle, one way or the other,” predicted Robert J. Blendon of Harvard’s School of Public Health.

In the current Congress, the Senate’s Democratic majority has stopped the Republican-led House of Representatives from defunding or delaying Obamacare’s implementation. But if Republicans take control of the Senate next year — a prospect currently rated as a tossup — only Obama’s veto will stand in their way.

And even by election day in 2016, Obamacare may still be a work in progress.

“If you give it three, four, five years, every experience we have is that public support will be there,” Blendon said. “But you have to give it that much time.” Meanwhile, Republicans will have every incentive to attack the program’s shortcomings.

“The real problem here is not managerial; many programs take years to roll out,” he said. “The real issue is political. Programs don’t do well if one party doesn’t support it and public opinion isn’t for it.”

As for Obamacare, public opinion has settled into skepticism.”

We don’t know if 2014 will be Gettysburg or the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. But we are sure ObamaCare will be defeated.

In a sense ObamaCare has already been defeated. For years we heard from Big Media and other sources of state coercive power that ObamaCare required millions of the healthy young to enroll so that their money would fund what they don’t need. To that end we would witness an explosion of ObamaCare enthusiasm as ObamaCare websites, aided by social media, would be popular demonstrations of the popular will and popular ObamaCare would establish itself as so popular all dissent would end and “settled law” would be settled law forever and ever, Amen. Instead what social media and Americans saw was a catastrophe. ObamaCare was not only a GLITCH-O-BAMA-RAMA – ObamaCare itself is a glitch.

ObamaCare is the glitch of all glitches. If this was not so we would be flooded by metrics about how popular ObamaCare is. Instead of metrics we are given mendacity:

“Jack Lew is Secretary of the Treasury in the Obama administration. Occupying the office once held by Alexander Hamilton, he lies only when his lips are moving. Chris Wallace induced rapid lip movement by Lew on Fox News Sunday this morning when he asked Lew how many of the millions of viewers of the federal Obamacare site signed up for Obamacare this week after the commencement of the open enrollment period. Lew declined to answer.”

“If they’re able and willing to release the website’s traffic data, as Carney does here, why can’t they can’t release the number of people who managed to complete the application process successfully? Any website that requires users to register has a way of counting the number of registrants. Carney doesn’t even deny that they have the number; he just says that they’ll release the data monthly like other agencies do, as if there’s no special public interest in the first-day enrollment numbers for ObamaCare. Show of hands: If the site was working like a dream and 500,000 people had signed up successfully in the first 24 hours, who thinks President Bashful would insist on sitting on those numbers for a month?“

They won’t say how many signed on to ObamaCare because so few did. Few Americans enrolled with ObamaCare because the scam is ever so blatant:

“On Thursday, the government’s official Obamacare Facebook page was riddled with people expressing sticker shock over the government’s high cost premiums after struggling for hours to wade through the technical failures vexing Obamacare exchanges all across the country.

“I am so disappointed,” wrote one woman. “These prices are outrageous and there are huge deductibles. No one can afford this!” The comment received 169 “likes.”

“There is NO WAY I can afford it,” said one commenter after using the Kaiser Subsidy Calculator. “Heck right now I couldn’t afford an extra 10$ [sic] a month…and oh apparently I make to [sic] much at 8.55/hour to get subsidies.”

Another person shared a link found on the federal government’s main Obamacare page listing premium estimates for small business employers:

The information is not very complete as I don’t see anything about deductible or other detailed info, but it does given an actual price as to the “Premium.” It is VERY SCARY!! For example, my insurance plan right now for my spouse and I costs $545 a month with 100% coverage after my $2500 deductible. We are both 32 years old. When I looked at this site for 80% coverage it says it will be $954.78 a month!!!! So compare my old Plan: 100% coverage for $545 a month To New Plan: 80% Coverage for $945 a month. This is only only an estimate but it is VERY Scary for me to see this kind of increase in rates and reduction in benefits!

A single mother of two said she is in school and working full-time while living “75% below the poverty level.” She said she was shocked to learn she did not qualify for a healthcare subsidy. “Are you F’ing kidding me????” she wrote on the government’s Obamacare Facebook page. “Where the HELL am I supposed to get $3,000 more a year to pay for this ‘bronze’ health insurance plan!?!??? And I DO NOT EVEN WANT INSURANCE to begin with!! This is frightening,” she wrote.

Amid scores of comments expressing frustration with technical failures, one woman said she is “just amazed you could even get to the point of seeing pricing” and that she had been trying to access the system for three days to no avail.

Obamacare sticker shock will not affect millions of low-income Americans; a New York Times analysis published on Wednesday found that Obamacare “will leave out two-thirds of the poor blacks and single mothers and more than half of the low-wage workers who do not have insurance, the very kinds of people that the program was intended to help.”

Obamacare will cost taxpayers an estimated $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years.”

“Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama.

Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, they were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law.

Vinson, of San Jose, will pay $1,800 more a year for an individual policy, while Waschura, of Portola Valley, will cough up almost $10,000 more for insurance for his family of four.”

You don’t have to ask ‘what’s the matter with Kansas’ to know ObamaCare is a scam. On the first day as ObamaCare supporters desperately searched for one single person in the entire country that had signed on for ObamaCare using the ObamaCare national website they came upon a young man called Chad Henderson. But it turned out he was a hanging Chad that had not yet really signed up for himself or his dad, as he claimed.

“Chad Henderson is the media’s poster boy for Obamacare. Reporters struggled this week to find individuals who said they had been able to enroll in one of the law’s 36 federally run health-insurance exchanges.

That changed yesterday, when they found Henderson, a 21-year-old student and part-time child-care worker who lives in Georgia and says that he successfully enrolled himself and his father Bill in insurance plans via the online exchange administered at healthcare.gov.

But in an exclusive phone interview this morning with Reason, Chad’s father Bill contradicted virtually every major detail of the story the media can’t get enough of. What’s more, some of the details that Chad has released are also at odds with published rate schedules and how Obamacare officials say the enrollment system works.

The coverage of Chad Henderson has been massive. [snip]

Henderson’s story was promoted as proof that the new health law can work for individuals. That was exactly how Chad intended it. He was a volunteer with President Obama’s campaign last year, and his LinkedIn page still lists him as an active volunteer with Organizing for Action, the former campaign organization which now advocates for the president’s legislative agenda.

He told The Washington Post that he was sharing his story because he wanted the new health law to succeed.

“I’ve read a few articles about how young people are very critical to the law’s success,” he said to The Post. “I really just wanted to do my part to help out with the entire process.”

But details of Chad’s story proved difficult to verify. And in a phone interview conducted this morning, Chad’s father Bill contradicted major details of Chad’s story.”

Another ObamaCare liar telling lies to benefit ObamaCare and Barack Obama should not surprise anyone who understands the nature of these totalitarian freaks who will do or say anything for their maximum leader.

“Need health insurance? The Obama administration has you covered. Simply dial 1-800-FUCKYO to reach the next available health-care provider.

Far from being a mistype, that’s the official number that Health and Human Services wants Americans to dial when seeking health care. Obamacare’s national call center really did list its number as 1-800-318-2596, helpfully spelling out President Barack Obama’s tendency to blatantly flip the bird in plain view. [snip]

1-800-3(F) 8(U) 2(C) 5(K) 9(Y) 6(O).

That’s 1-800-FUCKYO.”

We recently posted a suggestion for John Boehner to adjourn the House and reconvene it in red states with Obama Dimocrat incumbents running for senate reelection next year. We’ll add to that suggestion that Speaker Boehner and Senators Cruz and Paul demand that the call center number be changed immediately. The more Americans realize that ObamaCare is telling them “Fu*kYou” the louder the American people will respond “No, Fu*k You” in 2014.

The confusion over Obamacare has created a perfect opportunity for scammers, the Better Business Bureau said this morning.

David Smitherman, president and CEO of the Central Alabama Better Business Bureau, told WBRC that his organization had received reports of scammers using robocalls and going door-to-door in Birmingham, Alabama while posing as insurance agents.

“[They’re] telling homeowners that they are with an insurance company or they are with Medicare and that [the homeowners] are going to have to have an . . . Affordable Care Act card” in an attempt to obtain banking information or Social Security numbers, Smitherman said.”

Consumers couldn’t access parts of the U.S. government’s online health-insurance exchange today, after a weekend of technical upgrades failed to eliminate delays in the system at the heart of the Affordable Care Act.

The federal website, meant to serve people in 36 states, was still delivering error messages to users trying to create accounts. While most of the 14 states running their own health exchanges, including California, ran better, New York’s website had problems registering some consumers.

The fact that the Obama folks feel compelled to lie and to falsely represent this law is validation that they know there are problems with the law. It’s validation that Obama and his little helpers don’t really care whether it works, whether it benefits people, how many problems result from this law, nothing. All that matters is forcing it upon this country. The little helpers are in it for Obama. Obama is in it for Obama (via the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries).

The sad part is – they don’t get why we are not all in it for Obama. These idiots must not know jack about the founding principles of this country. America has never been about the person in the WH. Presidents come and go every 4 to 8 years. The office of the president is respected, but the president who occupies the office must earn that respect. The president is not revered, not in America.

There are plenty of other countries in which the leader dominates the country and the political and social climates. Obama might have a pretty decent shot at being installed the Supreme Leader- Almighty and Eminent in one of these countries. He needs to run along and give that a try, taking his little helpers with him. They can then bask in his greatness every minute of the day. If they are totally against America and the very basic nature of this country, they should feel free to seek out a place where individual freedom is not valued and where presidents are treated as royalty. I’m sure quite a number of Americans would pool their money to purchase plane tickets for Snow White and the dwarfs (no offense to little people intended).

admin, that headline is bound to draw peoples’ eyes to this post!
It’s good to see that Obama’s claim of settled law is being countered. How ridiculous a claim and yet he bought my friend Shirley with it until I set her straight. Shirley is smarter than the average non-computer follower of politics, so I cringe when I have to set her straight on something like this.

Smart to mention Gettysburg as divisions and conflicts of varying degrees culminating in things best left unthought about for now. And yet, with a small civil disobedience intrusion planned for the open field of Gettysburg this weekend, I’m worried as to harm that might come to those participating. I’ve never met Leo Knepper: Leo joined CAP after being the Pennsylvania state director for Heritage Action for … He is a lifelong Pennsylvania resident and longtime conservative activist. And he’s organized a group to walk across the battlefield there. https://www.facebook.com/groups/410145995774476/permalink/410334009089008/ Citizens Invade Gettysburg

Maybe Jay Carney had a pretty rough day. I left something else that happened to him this 7th day of October. It is a comment on the previous post regarding how CBS and Jay redefined some of what John Boehner said Sunday.

Admin even dug up a hanging Chad for us. How rare is that these days?

Probably I appreciate most the identification of the two most hated laws in the land. Settled or not. Side By Side.

And the Republicans wonder why they are in so much trouble? They blame it on the “liberal media” which heaven knows, deserves some blame. But, much of their difficulty is due to their own ignorance and backwardness, as noted in the article linked. Apparently, some Republican state conventions are featuring sexist, sophomoric buttons about Hillary’s body parts. Anti-Hillary buttons which, if taken at face value, would imply that a female should not be president unless she looks like someone who has been or is currently married to Brad Pitt. This critique (largely) from fat, balding old men with skinny legs, bad breath, and limp dicks. These neanderthal Republicans are so out of touch – they don’t even have the good sense to PRETEND not to be sexist. They are knuckle dragging, un-evolved, cretins whose world view is so narrow they aspire to stupid. They think with their penises – probably all they can do with them.

The little non-thinkers are scared to death of Hillary!!! She’s got ’em on the run.

“Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are PROUD to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama.
———————
Of all the causes that conspire to blind
Man’s erring judgement and misguide the mind
What the weak head with strongest bias rules
Is PRIDE–the never failing vice of fools.—-Alexander Pope circa 1575
———————
Cindy and Tom need to stop belly aching and take one for the Gipper
It is the patriotic thing to do, and better yet
It proves to the world that you are not a racist
So pay up kiddies and do yourself proud

WWII veterans can’t visit their monument, but ILLEGALS can feel free to march on the CLOSED National Mall. I swear this POTUS is deliberately trying to get us into a civil war.

“A planned immigration reform rally will take place on the National Mall on Tuesday even though the site is closed due to the government shutdown . Organizers for the ” Camino Americano: March for Immigration Reform ” were spotted Monday setting up a stage and equipment on the National Mall for the rally which will take place on Tuesday.”

On the bright side, at least the Amber Alert site was reopened after Americans screamed bloody murder over its closure…especially since Michelle’s site was still allowed to function after they originally closed the Amber Alert site.

“Over the weekend, the Obama administration decided to close the Amber Alert system website thanks to the government shutdown. The Let’s Move website, Michelle Obama’s designated domain for her nutrition and exercise program, remained open. On Monday, after public outcry, the site was posted back online late on Monday. The Amber Alert program is used in all 50 states to alert residents to child abductions.”

Admin: 20 years ago or more Forbes magazine had an interview with a British “chap” named Parkinson. He was old and a little on the seedy side, but it looked like he belonged at Kings College Cambridge or Queens College Oxford. In the article he talked about a series of business rules which he laid down like some latter day Moses, which came to be known as Parkinsons Laws. They deal with bureaucracy and failed leadership–and they absolutely wreak of Mr. Obama.

He claimed that he found the inspiration to opine on the subject from his experiences as a lieutenant in the RAF during world war II, when he discovered that one day, when the wing commander was on vacation, the assistant wing commander was absent due to a seminar, his boss the captain was sick, and he found himself all alone with absolutely nothing to do, and suddenly he had a moment of clarity in which he realize that the whole damned air wing was doing absolutely nothing to win the war, but were always just busy keeping each other busy, as is the nature of all bureaucracies–Obama nation being no exception. On the contrary, the Obama Administration is a paradigmatic example.

“Injelitance”: is the condition that grips an organization–like government, when a certain type of executive–like Messiah Obama takes charge. I will let Parkinson take it from here:

“The first sign of danger is represented by the appearance in the organization’s heirarachy of an individual who combines in himself a high concentration of incompetence and jealousy. Neither quality is significant in itself, and most individuals have a certain proportion of each. But when these qualities reach a certain concentration … there is a chemical reaction. The two elements fuse, producing a new substance that we have termed “injelitance.” The presence of this substance can be safely inferred from the actions of any individual who, having failed to make anything of his own department, tries constantly to interfere with other departments and gain control of the central administration.”

freespirit
October 7, 2013 at 9:16 pm
And the Republicans wonder why they are in so much trouble? They blame it on the “liberal media” which heaven knows, deserves some blame. But, much of their difficulty is due to their own ignorance and backwardness, as noted in the article linked. Apparently, some Republican state conventions are featuring sexist, sophomoric buttons about Hillary’s body parts. Anti-Hillary buttons which, if taken at face value, would imply that a female should not be president unless she looks like someone who has been or is currently married to Brad Pitt.
_____________________________________________________

Looks like the Republicans are taking a page out of the 2008 Obama campaign.

Shit like this is why I have no party affiliation. The hell with the lot of them on both sides.

BTW, did I mention I feel like Howard Beal tonight? I am MAD AS HELL AND I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.

Admin: the question I ask myself a dozen times a day is how do we make big media pay for this treason? I am not sure the market place will take care of them. If this Obamacare turns out to be the nightmare, then there needs to be some vehicle showing their complicity at each step. It is the usual framework–exaggerate the problem, come up with a government program which supposedly addressed it but does not, bring in the Harvard trained experts who can collect a fortune from the American People and then run the ship aground, dismiss their critics as ignorant or malicious, and when everything fails they will say it would have failed earlier but for their wonderful disasterous program. Tom Sowell wrote about this framework in his book The Vision of the Annointed. Perhaps a split screen with NYT calling Obamacare the greatest civil rights victory since 1964, and on the other side, the current debacle. Some way, big media must be made to eat its own lies. This is partly a matter of retributive justice for what they have done to wreck this country, and partly a matter of deterrence so they do not do the same thing again in the future.

In the current Congress, the Senate’s Democratic majority has stopped the Republican-led House of Representatives from defunding or delaying Obamacare’s implementation. But if Republicans take control of the Senate next year — a prospect currently rated as a tossup — only Obama’s veto will stand in their way.

And even by election day in 2016, Obamacare may still be a work in progress.
————–
How nice for them. They get their Harvard plug in–and by the way there are more Harvard attorneys nominated for judgeships than in any adminstration in history. Then comes the euphemism: a work in progress??? Is that what it is? If so then we need to tell Cindy and Tom to stop sweating the premium increases because that the hole they feel in their pocket is for a worthy cause, namely a work in progress, and they are the guineau pigs. The should be honored to do this for the first black president they voted for twice so they could feel good about themselves.

freespirit
October 7, 2013 at 9:16 pm
—————————
Sonny Franzese was a capo with the Columbo family. He was a money maker, and in his prime he was the guy they gave their hit man. He had a status similar to that of Albert Anastasia who was the head of Murder Inc. years earlier. On one occasion, he and the boss of his family, Joe Columbo travelled to Las Vegas, where Sinatra was appearing. At the conclusion of the act, he went to the table where Sonny and Joe were sitting and he kissed the ring on Sonny’s hand, and ignored Joe–which did not sit well because he was the boss of the family. Sonny had that kind of respect and yet when a jerk started yelling at him on the street, and he could have gone back and clobbered the guy, like Gotti would have done, he declined to do so. He was asked about it and he replied–why should I waste my time and energy on him, he is nothing. The same is true of the Republicans wearing those pins. They are cases of arrested development. And they are not worth worrying about. I used to get upset about this, and if Matthews comes to town as scheduled, then I do intend to get up in front of the microphone reserved for question and read off the list of things he said about Hillary and ask him before that audience over and over again what is the matter with him. But other than him, I ignore these people, for the same reasons Sonny Franzese did. His son Michael was the brains of the new Mafia, and he is one of the few who managed to get out with his life. He and his wife now help troubled youth.

You’re right, of course, wbb – they’re not worth worrying about. The anger I hold toward them is less about Hillary and more about their general views and treatment of women. These worms can toss around sexist slurs and no one cares. If they made racial slurs, the press would be all over them – not to mention their party leaders. Racism loses votes. Sexism does not. It should.

Re: Tingles – Please, please if you do get that microphone in your hand, record your comments to him. I’d pay good money to hear you clean his clock.

jbstonesfan
October 7, 2013 at 11:49 pm
I received notice the plan my PA has been on for years may not be offered upon renewal.
_____________________________________________________
I am dreading this year’s healthcare/benefits meeting at work.

freespirit
October 7, 2013 at 10:43 pm
You’re right, of course, wbb – they’re not worth worrying about. The anger I hold toward them is less about Hillary and more about their general views and treatment of women. These worms can toss around sexist slurs and no one cares. If they made racial slurs, the press would be all over them – not to mention their party leaders. Racism loses votes. Sexism does not. It should.

Re: Tingles – Please, please if you do get that microphone in your hand, record your comments to him. I’d pay good money to hear you clean his clock.
____________________________________________________
wbb, what I really want you to ask Matthews is after he declared Hillary only won her Senate seat because of Bill and was unqualified for POTUS….what makes her qualified now according to HIM? Could it be that he was dead-ass WRONG in 2008..or does Hillary now give him a “tingle” down his leg?

“When the Health Insurance Marketplace opened last week, demand was so high, it exceeded even optimists’ expectations. On the first day alone, HealthCare.gov had nearly eight times more concurrent users than Medicare’s site (one of the federal government’s most highly trafficked) during open enrollment peak levels.

Many of our neighbors have been waiting years for affordable health insurance. Some have waited their entire lives. After enrolling in coverage last week, Daniel McNaughton of Florida declared: “I found a health insurance plan better than I have ever had for a price I can afford. … The (new law) was worth the wait.” Andrew Stryker of California told The Washington Post he would have “waited all day” to sign up for coverage that will save him more than $6,000.

Of course, nobody wants Americans to have to wait to sign up. Engineers are working day and night to make upgrades. We’re adding more servers to enable the system to handle larger loads. And we’re upgrading our software as well to make the system more efficient and enable it to handle higher volumes.

This work is delivering results. Wait times on HealthCare.gov are now 50% shorter, and more people are enrolling in affordable coverage.

At the same time, we have been upgrading the capacity at our 24/7 call center (800-318-2596). And consumers are finding that their calls are being answered quickly.

To those who are interested in signing up, you have until Dec. 15 to enroll to get coverage the first day it takes effect on Jan. 1. If you are willing to wait a little longer for your benefits, you have until the end of March to sign up.

Virtually anyone who has tried to purchase insurance in the individual market will attest that it was complicated and time consuming. People were denied and priced out, and they had few if any real choices.

This is why the Marketplace matters. It is simple and user-friendly, and the coverage is affordable.

Jan. 1 will be a new day for millions of Americans who have waited a very long time to obtain affordable health insurance.

“Over the first four days the new online health insurance exchanges were open last week, more than 8 million people visited them, according to the Obama administration. At the very least, this casts doubt on the Republican claim that Americans hate Obamacare and want it repealed. It seems millions of people desperately want the coverage the law will allow them to get, regardless of their medical histories.

Alas, the administration managed to turn the experience for most of those visitors into a nightmare. Websites crashed, refused to load, or offered bizarre and incomprehensible choices. Even though the system was shut down for repairs over the weekend, Monday’s early reports continued to suggest an epic screw-up.

Why have things gone so wrong?

President Obama’s chief technology adviser, Todd Park, blames the unexpectedly large numbers of people who flocked to Healthcare.gov and state websites. “Take away the volume and it works,” he told USA TODAY’s Tim Mullaney.

That’s like saying that except for the torrential rain, it’s a really nice day. Was Park not listening to the administration’s daily weather report predicting Obamacare’s popularity?

Park said the administration expected 50,000 to 60,000 simultaneous users. It got 250,000. Compare that with the similarly rocky debut seven years ago of exchanges to obtain Medicare drug coverage. The Bush administration projected 20,000 simultaneous users and built capacity for 150,000.

That’s the difference between competence and incompetence.

The too-much-demand excuse also is less than the full story. In addition to grossly underestimating demand, the administration and its contractors seem to have made mistakes in building the websites. The system for verifying consumer identity has had persistent problems, as have pull-down menus.

Nor were problems confined to the 36 state health exchanges run by the federal government. Sites run by 14 states and Washington, D.C., bogged down because they have to refer to federal databases to verify consumers’ identity.

The non-federal exchanges appear to vary widely in performance. Maryland’s highly touted site continued to generate a bewildering array of error messages on Monday, while a successful visit to the D.C. marketplace showed a profusion of plans at a wide range of prices — exactly what consumers have been led to expect.

Considering that officials had more than three years to prepare, it’s hard even to imagine a credible excuse. And if the Medicare Part D experience is any guide, new layers of problems await as people finally get through and engage the complexities of buying insurance.

If there’s good news, it’s that technology can be fixed. Consumers have until mid-December to sign up for insurance that takes effect Jan. 1.

As the incompetence drones on, however, it hands ammunition to those who want to kill the law regardless of the broad interest in it. Delay — a tactic Republicans seek as a means of repealing Obamacare — is no answer.

Even so, the administration had better get its act together before frustration drives people away.”

Admin: the question I ask myself a dozen times a day is how do we make big media pay for this treason? I am not sure the market place will take care of them
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This is the big question. How can they be held accountable? If held accountable hopefully, they would behave more responsibly and ethically.

Obviously, boycotting sponsors would send a powerful message, as would boycotting their news programs, publications, etc. Organizing such an effort would be a monumental challenge, but surely it’s doable.

I would love to see a bi-partisan group with tons of money launch an public information campaign, with an ad blitz calling for media to stop abusing their power and the constitutional freedom under which they function, and to be truthful and unbiased. It would take a fortune, which is why it won’t happen. But, it’s nice to think about.

“The presence of this substance can be safely inferred from the actions of any individual who, having failed to make anything of his own department, tries constantly to interfere with other departments and gain control of the central administration.”

__________________

This is so true. Consistently, it is the individuals whose ducks are in the crookedest line, who try to seize control and tell others just how to get their ducks in a row. You would think that people like Obama, lacking in real substance and competence, probably really know deep down inside that they are just not up to the task. But, this isn’t always so – or if it is, the understanding is buried so deeply that it, for all intents and purposes, does not exist. Obama’s narcissism does not allow self-insight. Nor does it allow empathy, honest, and a number of qualities humans should possess.

The state of Maryland says it has thousands of people interested in buying health insurance on its new state-run exchange, but only 326 so far have actually enrolled in new coverage.

That number is one of the few trickling out about enrollment in the new health-insurance exchanges created by the 2010 Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The federal government, which is operating exchanges on behalf of 36 states, hasn’t given enrollment numbers yet for its HealthCare.gov exchange, which, as The Wall Street Journal reported today, has been plagued by design and software problems.

Maryland is one of 14 states running its own exchange. With a Democratic governor and Democratic-dominated legislature, the state’s commitment to making the law work was never in doubt, but it ran into considerable technology problems early on. (This Washington Post story has more details.)

On Monday, the state said it is still working through technical issues and conceded that MarylandHealthConnection.gov “may be inconsistent, especially during periods of peak usage.”

Those problems are reflected in the Maryland numbers released Monday, the first of what the state said would be regular data releases. The state said 13,532 accounts with verified identity were created as of Sunday evening, and it has seen 170,000 unique visitors to the website. But only 326 people were actually enrolled in new health-insurance plans.

The state has about 600,000 people without health insurance, according to the Census Bureau, so it has a long way to go to make a dent in its uninsured rate. Officials say there’s still plenty of time, so long as people aren’t deterred by website problems. Open enrollment continues through March 31.

—overly intense 6 year old child brainwashed and abused by her parents

But for every believer, there are sceptics, such as:

The main motive behind Barack Obama’s closing off open-air war memorials and Mount Rushmore from public view is to force attention back to him and his Mrs. as indisputable natural rulers of the world.
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Hitler had it, Napoleon had it, radical Islam still practices it, and the Obamas got it in spades—an unquenchable thirst to be obeyed as unquestioned world leaders.

In Obama’s narcissistic thinking, he and only he is Mount Rushmore, the World War II War Memorial, and the only loyal lure that continues to bring people to cemeteries in Europe and around the world to honor the American war dead.

Obama resents all adulation of others, including the war dead.

“All bow down to Obama” is the mantra that lives full-time in his head, and when he gets his way about starting sex education in kindergarten, little kids will be taught the words to that song.

A quick skim through history proves that when leaders go mad in office real people suffer real pain.

Leaders embarking on insanity always toss lifelines to their wives and mistresses.

Proof in Obama’s case comes today on the front page of yesterday’s Drudge via The Right Scoop: “This is unbelievable. The Obama administration has shut down the Amber Alert website because of the government shutdown and it now renders this message when you attempt to access it:

“I’m sure you care about your lost child but Obama doesn’t—at least not while he’s trying to ‘win’ the government shutdown. I understand from twitter that Amber alerts are state level programs with a federal website. Not real sure how all that works but it just seems unfathomable that this website wouldn’t qualify under ‘essential’, especially when most of the government is still operating.

“No, this is just Obama putting politics ahead of you finding your lost child. Despicable.

So there you have it. The forced omnipresence of the Obamas over everything and everybody—including lost children.

CFP Update: The government’s already coming out of Obama’s painted corner. They quietly turned the Amber Alert website back on at about 10:45 this morning.

Having waded into the utter madness of overkill, Barack Obama is now trying to drive the rest of the world mad. But clinging to sanity in days of orchestrated upheaval is more important now than ever.

In other words, rather than you losing it, drive Obama further down the dark tunnel.

God’s light shines on all of Washington’s war memorials. That’s because life on earth moves on with or without Barack Obama, and petty politics just being politics Obama will someday soon have to go on the hunt for ways to paint himself back out of the corner.

Obama, who has finally gone overboard on dangerous overreach, is now the reason for people wanting to draw a red line, like the one he referenced for Syria but never got around to delivering.

The 99% of the 35,000 World War II veterans who have never seen their war memorial flooding into D.C., aren’t the only ones who are mad and who aren’t going to take it anymore.

Obama’s public hissy fits aren’t going down well with tourists, who long ago planned their visits, or families visiting memorials to teach their children a sense of history either.

Hissy fits belong out in the late-night alley among feral cats and not to anyone taking up residence in the White House.

An increasingly mean and petty Obama looked silly when he first personally ordered the WWII memorial ordered shut down and then followed up with actual threats. He looked sillier even than he did in his picture on a girl’s bicycle, when he had the vets threatened with arrest. Next Obama looked silly as a loon when he ordered the Vietnam Memorial shut down and World War 11 cemeteries in Europe and around the world shut down, barring people who honour dead war heroes.

Who is Barack Obama to take this time-honoured right from them?

It defied belief when German shepherd dogs were brought in, in a veiled effort to intimidate veterans and tourists making their way to Capitol grounds to see the Memorials.

All Obama has done so far bears the embarrassing tell-tale tactics of a sore loser.

When Obama had orange traffic cones put along the shoulders of highways in South Dakota to prevent people stopping for a look at the iconic Mount Rushmore, he looked downright ridiculous when motorists merely got out of their vehicles and removed them.

Imagine a president, who, along with his wife, is the biggest groupie of actors and singers in the Entertainment industry, proving it most Wednesday nights at the White House, cutting off thousands of American troops serving their country in the most dangerous places from the welcome break of televised sports.

What kind of a president would act the way Obama’s been acting since painting himself in a corner on the Government Shutdown?

A bully boy president, who will be remembered long after he’s gone as the despicable ‘Poster Boy of Petty and Mean’.

Like the poorly raised kid who steals all the marbles and balls in childhood street games, Obama acts as though he owns even all the private property in the same country he is fundamentally transforming.

In his latest moves, he’s bitten off his nose to spite his face, and this time there is no Vladimir Putin riding over the horizon to rescue him.

When all of this first started, groups of vets in their 80s and 90s were DC bound to visit their war memorial. Now the awakened grassroots is rising up against him.

The tide is turning and the only way back for Obama is to admit defeat.

This is one tide no one can stop, not the mainstream media, not Oprah, not even Michelle and Valerie Jarrett can get their favourite bully boy out of this one.

Coming down a road near BHO very soon:an unforgettable big lesson from the other side called ‘Drawing the Red Line 101’.

Police arrested numerous Vietnam veterans during a vigil at a war memorial in New York City last night after the protesters refused to adhere to a 10pm curfew.

The veterans had gathered at the Vietnam Memorial Plaza to protest the 12th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan by reading out the names of deceased US soldiers.

One video shows a man speaking about how veterans are committing suicide. “This is a sign of betrayal….it’s important you know that your government committed immense atrocities during the Vietnam war, we did it every day,” he states.

After the Park Service rejected the group’s application to hold a protest at the site, an all night vigil was planned. The group argued that its first amendment rights superseded the 10pm curfew.

Photographs show veterans being handcuffed and loaded into paddy wagons.

A live stream video recording of the event shows demonstrators chanting, “whose side are you on?” before police, after several verbal warnings, move in to make the arrests.

wbboei
October 8, 2013 at 3:40 am
Moody’s dismisses default talk, says US will pay bills even if debt ceiling not lifted

Moody’s called China who said they had already talked to the WH. WH told China “Yes, sir” and the default talk is just Kabuki and not to worry. China also warned not to crash stockmarket as that is a dumbass thing to do. /s/

jbstonesfan
October 7, 2013 at 11:49 pm
I received notice the plan my PA has been on for years may not be offered upon renewal.

This one of the things big insurance wanted out of Obama-non insurance/none healthcare. They wanted to bypass state insurance regulators so the could drop policies and rate-jack. This is why no cost controls were in Obamacare as it was designed to make the rates sky-rocket for business and individuals. Health insurance is being turned into the protection racket of the Democratic Party. It was designed to extort trillions out of the economy plus hand over life and death power to party hacks in perpetuity. Now they are trying to terrorize everyone into paying up.

District of Columbia, October 1, 2013: America’s Islamic Heritage Museum (AIHM) announced, The Mayor of the District of Columbia issuing a Proclamation honoring the month of October as America’s Islamic Heritage month. This year is the eighth annual celebration of October as America’s Islamic Heritage month in the District. This year’s theme is ”Connecting People Using Culture and History.”

The Mayor calls upon all the residents of this great City to join him in celebration and recognition of the history and contributions of the Islamic Community.

The Muslim communities throughout our region are encouraged to host open houses and educational events that highlight our diversity, contributions, and history. Our public schools are encouraged to learn about America’s rich Islamic history, to teach tolerance and understanding, and to visit AIHM museum.

I rarely watch TV news, and was just wondering how much, if any, coverage there has been on the shutdown – in terms of the ridiculous lengths Obama has gone to in order to make Americans feel the pinch (absurdly believing they will blame only the Republicans).

Can you imagine the kind of heat W would have taken had he shut down the Amber Alert System, as was mentioned above, or the war memorials, or the freaking ocean? ABC, NBC, and CNN would have had a million Dems on the air to lament the travesty and ridicule the Bush administration, by this point.

1. GOP needs to go on and extend the debt ceiling. It needs to get off the table so we can focus on defunding Obamacare.

2. At the same time, the GOP needs to understand that Vitter and/or the medical device tax is not enough

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Yes, I Think This Means the GOP is Winning

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | October 8th, 2013 at 04:30 AM | 14

Polling shows more Americans blame the GOP than Barack Obama. I think this means the GOP is winning. You’ll need to let me explain.

Republican leaders have lived in abject fear for the last two months that there would be an overwhelming backlash against them. In 1995, public opinion ran against the GOP 2 to 1. Bill Clinton consistently got the better of the GOP.

With that history in mind, the GOP leadership in Washington, when no fundraising off Ted Cruz’s hard line, has been soiling itself afraid the GOP might actually go along with him.

And the party did.

The result? Independents blame both the Democrats and the Republicans about equally. Overall, the GOP gets the most blame, but not a whole lot more than the Democrats. The CNN push alert to my phone yesterday summed it up pretty succinctly:

CNN pushalert

That’s it. Slightly more people blame the GOP than the Democrats. Not an overwhelming stomping like GOP leaders feared. The public hates Washington, regardless of side, and some of the hate toward the GOP is from its own side for not fighting.

That a clear and large majority of the public disagrees with the GOP’s reasons in this shut down, but only slightly more blame the GOP than the Democrats, is a very good thing.

When the media, Republican establishment pundits, and the Democrats have all aligned to attack Ted Cruz and conservatives, but only slightly more of the public blames the GOP than the Democrats, this is a real win for our side.

The House, led by Senators Cruz and Lee, on the path of small funding bills, has shown the public the GOP is willing to be reasonable on all issues except Obamacare.

This, again, is why the GOP needs to go on and extend the debt ceiling. It needs to get off the table so we can focus on defunding Obamacare.

At the same time, the GOP needs to understand that Vitter and/or the medical device tax is not enough

Luke rack could never have dreamed this one up. She is an idiot, but not an imaginative one. This 14th Amendment delusion came from her trusty lieutenant, everyone’s favorite walrus, George Miller. But even Obama minions know it is Fantasy Island. I understand George is applying for medical marijuana. Luberack would have too, but all her extra money–what she and her husband do not have invested either in China, or inside information on Wall Street–that is a fact, is going to the botox industry. In her own personal life, she has learned to deal with austerity of a certain kind. Meanwhile Boehner assures us that it would be a catastrophe if the nation defaulted and he will not permit that to happen, whilst Moodys assures us there is no risk of default. I trust John as far as I can throw the kitchen sink. If I am right he will use the phantom threat of a government shutdown to attempt to secure a grand bargain with either the Vitter Amendment or the medical device tax as the fig leaf to hide behind. And Obama after swearing on his mother’s grave that he will never give in to terrorists (unless they kill Americans) will lecture us on the virtues of comprise, whilst Brian Williams says isn’t he wonderful, and big media chants out yes he can, and gets out the knee pads. If I said I was sick of this movie, perhaps someone would believe me.
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Obama has rejected calls, one delivered by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, of California, to run an end-around on Congress and unilaterally the 14th Amendment to do so.

“We do not believe that the 14th Amendment provides that authority to the president,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said Thursday.

The 14th Amendment, among other things, asserts, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned,” leading to some speculation that Obama could use the inherent emergency powers of his office to avert a crisis.

But Obama and other administration officials have in the face of past congressional confrontation maintained that the president does not have the constitutional power to act on the debt limit without Congress.

“Our view is, the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the authority to borrow money, and only Congress can increase the debt ceiling,” Carney said. “Which is why it’s time that they do their job and raise the debt ceiling – you know, authorize the Treasury to pay the bills that Congress racked up.”

There are a lot of surprised people in California now that more Obamacare details are coming out:

In California, 1.9 million people buy plans on the open market, according to officials with Covered California, the state’s new health insurance exchange. And many of them are steaming mad.

“There’s going to be a number of people surprised” by their bills, said Jonathan Wu, a co-founder of ValuePenguin, a consumer finance website. “The upper-middle class are the people who are essentially being asked to foot the bill, and that’s true across the country.”

Covered California spokesman Dana Howard maintained that in public presentations the exchange has always made clear that there will be winners and losers under Obamacare.

“Some people will see an increase who are already on the individual market purchasing insurance,” he said, “but most people will not.”…

Both Vinson and Waschura have adjusted gross incomes greater than four times the federal poverty level — the cutoff for a tax credit. And while both said they anticipated their rates would go up, they didn’t realize they would rise so much.

“Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.”

Raise your hand if you think Dana Howard has much of a clue how many people will actually see premiums go up and how many will see them go down. No one expected the Obamacare Sticker Shock:

Also, the levels that premium payments are set this year are not necessarily what they will be next year, or the next—and those levels will to some measure depend on how many people sign up for Obamacare and how many people opt to pay the penalty instead—another unknown.

But it’s that last quote from Vinson that seems to encapsulate a common liberal mindset on Obamacare—or on government-funded benefits in general—that so infuriates conservatives. Who doesn’t “want people to have health care”? But the real question—and the real difference between the approaches of conservatives and liberals, inflammatory rhetoric aside—is how such a thing would be paid for, and especially whether it is possible to do so without putting an undue burden on the wage-earning tax-paying public.

Another AWESOME article, Admin.
Thank you I shared every where I hope others do too. 🙂
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Indeed, foxy. I did too.
Astounding breadth, depth of this post allows for much higher understanding of feelings those before us went through. Without a computer/internet. Many without USPS either. 🙁

Excellent post, Admin…you hit all the important points…starting with O admin’s totalitarianism and the dims that oblige…

…ah, yes!…the “price ticket” for Ocare…we tried to warn those who would not listen…

and now they are shocked…simply shocked…you idiots fell for the scam…

well, it will get worse…can you just imagine if things are this bad when the O admin just tries to enroll people…what in the hell is up ahead for actual health care for individuals…the whole Ocare scam is run like a business by bureaucrats…do they think the “paper work” and intrusion on their privacy is going to get better? do they expect better health coverage for less?

…just wait until people see how screwed they are going to get with the O ‘Affordable Health Care’ scam…this should be denounced as criminal…

***************

finally Michael Goodwin has a way with words as he describes O and his SpiteHouse:

America has had some great presidents, many mediocre ones and a few bad ones. But we’ve never had one like Barack Obama. He’s the first who thinks the job is beneath him.

He’s the first who turns political give-and-take into a crisis by refusing to negotiate with Congress.

He’s the first who thinks the way to more power is to inflict pain on ordinary people.

The move to barricade the World War II memorial reveals the mentality of a tin-pot dictator. The limited government shutdown did not need to affect the memorial because it is open 24 hours, without gates and often without guards.

I’ve been saying for a while that there is no bottom to Obama. He’s not just ruthless. He’s without scruples and honor.

But to turn public opinion in his favor, Obama’s goons trucked in barricades to keep out World War II vets and other visitors. By one estimate, the barricades and workers cost $100,000.

The same punish-the-people attitude led to shutdowns of other parks and historic sites that get no federal funding.

“We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting,” a Park Service ranger told The Washington Times.

The ranger cited the order to close the parking lot at George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon so visitors couldn’t use it. The cheap trick captured the contrast between a revered president and the current one.

However the shutdown ends, it will bring only a temporary respite from the crisis atmosphere in Washington. When it comes to his countrymen, Obama always chooses conflict over cooperation.

She was the governor of my state. I campaigned for her and was so proud when she took office. At one of the post inauguration parties, I took 4 or 5 pictures with her. Now, I am just ashamed. Mostly of her. She isn’t the person that ran Kansas anymore.

TheRock
October 8, 2013 at 1:28 pm
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I used to like her too. I really thought she was destined for the highest office–after Hillary of course. I no longer think that. Obama is poison. Everyone who gets near him is destroyed sooner or later. When I was campaigning for Hillary in western Pennsylvania, I knocked on a door and the lady inside appeared. She took my literature, told me she was a supporter and assured me she would show up at the polls. And then she told me that Obama was the devil. I told her I would have to take that under advisement, but had no proof that he was not. Today, I realize she was right. I have been reading a book by a British occultist named Dion Fortune, under the rubric of every lawyer who has to go second in a criminal trial—keep an open mind. She began her career in psychiatry and was an early disciple of Freud. She treated many men who suffered from the effects of being gassed by the Germans in World War I. And she started a whole school on the subject, which may have been a reaction to Darwin’s theories–pushing back the other way perhaps. There is a depth of analysis in her writing, indicative of a first rate mind, wrestling with issues which are clearly outside the mainstream of thought, and easily dismissed as witchcraft if you talk to the wrong. I happened to be chatting with a Unitarian Minister about this, and he was very familiar with her work–and her novels. She could move objects with her mind, as the Russian experiment demonstrates, and connect with people who have passed. He told me that when she died they had to bring in an exorcist to remove her spirit from the school. If she were living today, I am reasonably certain that she would confirm what the lady in Pittsburg said. Her book on psychic self defense–a manual for protecting yourself against paranormal attacks would be the right place to start a critical analysis of Obama. He is demonic. This is for those who cannot accept the more conventional explanation of course. Do I believe in this stuff? Let’s not prejudge the question. Lets see what the great messiah does in the days ahead.

What I find intriguing is that Reid has taken the position of whole blade or no trade, whereas the White House is floating the idea that maybe there is another option. In other words, they are moving to undercut Reid’s position. This is why he wants to keep Monte Hall aka Joe Biden out of the mix. He Durbin and Schumer have convinced themselves that they cannot lose, even as the ground under their feet is moving. Even that asshole Trump sees that the Republicans are holding a winning hand if they can achieve internal unity and play out the hand. Any one who tells you this is not about winning is full of shit. This is all about winning, because this entire situation was a trap orchestrated by the Democrats and their adamant refusal not to negotiate. That position must be obliterated once and for all. Only then can bi partistanship be restored. There are beaches that need to be assaulted, mountains that need to be climbed and a perverse course of dealing by Obama that must be decimated before it destroys the country. Courage.

Obama is poison. Everyone who gets near him is destroyed sooner or later.

____________________________________________________________

(I wasn’t kidding about that book. You have met some of the most colorful people. Hurry up and write it!!)

I couldn’t agree with you more. There was so much hope when she won the Governor’s seat in KS. We saw change happening. She forestalled the decent into educational madness in KS where the belief now is that creationism is a science and took the lead in HS education as a whole in. She cleaned up a lot of Medicare/Medicaid fraud in the state. She helped bring business to the urban areas. I had so much hope seeing this vibrant intelligent woman kicking ass and taking names.

Then she teamed up with bumbles. As you, me, admin, hta, shadow, free, and everybody else here knows –

Obama simply cannot be trusted. Obama cannot be trusted on any issue. Obama cannot be trusted by his friends. Obama cannot be trusted by his enemies. Obama cannot be trusted.

For more than half a century, the public has been able to access a wealth of information collected by U.S. intelligence from unclassified, open sources around the world. At the end of this year, the Central Intelligence Agency will terminate that access.

The U.S. intelligence community’s Open Source Center (OSC), which is managed by the CIA, will cease to provide its information feed to the publicly accessible World News Connection as of December 31, 2013, according to an announcement from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), which operates the World News Connection (WNC).

The WNC “is an online news service, only accessible via the World Wide Web, that offers an extensive array of translated and English-language news and information,” an NTIS brochure explains. “Particularly effective in its coverage of local media sources, WNC provides you with the power to identify what really is happening in a specific country or region. Compiled from thousands of non-U.S. media sources, the information in WNC covers significant socioeconomic, political, scientific, technical, and environmental issues and events.”

Jeebus. It’s costing more money and racking up more debt just to have extra rangers out patrolling and pulling this BS in an open area park. IF this was a true shutdown, all they would really have to do in these open area parks would be to cancel guided tours, close visitors centers and concession stands, reduce ranger patrols, and put up a sign at entrances saying something like: “park closed. reduced ranger presence. enter and use at your own risk.” But no, the Obama Administration has to go and transform NPS rangers into the Bitter Barry Brigade, and send them out to annoy, harass,
ntimidate, threaten, ticket and arrest people fordoing nothing more than going out and walking around in open area monuments and parks that have virtually no “moving parts” that need active government worker staffing. Gee, it’s almost like this administration is a bunch of thugs from Chicago or something……

Michael Barone observed back in 2009 and 2010 that Obamacare was the most divisive legislation since the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which was one of the incidents that gave birth to the Republican Party, and was also a milestone on the way to the Civil War. Had today’s liberal media been present at the time, I’m sure they would have decried the Republicans for “extremism” in opposing the Act and standing athwart “popular sovereignty” and other simpleminded expressions of “democracy.” The first platform of the Republican Party in 1856 pledged the new party to abolishing “the twin relics of barbarism—polygamy and slavery.” Within a year, the Supreme Court, in Dred Scott, essentially ruled that the Republican Party’s platform and purpose was unconstitutional. How’s that for extremism!

This parallel should be borne in mind as we survey the present scene, and as we ask ourselves which party actually today represents intransigence and “extremism.” Obamacare remains a partisan law, unacceptable to a large portion of the country whose will on the matter, expressed unevenly as always in our deliberately mixed electoral system, is nonetheless clear. It should be kept in mind that although the fundamental question of slavery couldn’t be resolved through the political process in the 1850s, even in that situation of extreme polarization a number of other compromises over sectional friction were achieved in Congress, most especially a lowering of tariffs that the South quite legitimately disliked.

The parallel today is obvious: even if Republicans can’t realistically expect to roll back Obamacare in toto from the House, the more reasonable positions on the medical device tax and eliminating the special privileges for members of Congress and their staffs (both of which enjoy some Democratic support) should be the ground on which a practical compromise is struck to end the shutdown. Who is standing in the way of this?

Imagine if someone in the White House press room asked Obama why his health insurance websites have a phone number which spells out “Fuc*Yo”. As a follow-up imaginary press person could have asked Obama who ordered that “F*ckYo” phone number, when that person will fired, and at what time tomorrow that phone number would be changed? Instead, Obama had his pillows fluffed as in the 2008 campaign.

It’s a miracle that Speaker Boehner and the House Republican conference have held so firm in the face of so much Big Media Obama protection. They deserve a salute for finally fighting.

Maryland’s Health Connection, the state’s Obamacare marketplace, has been plagued by delays in the first days of open enrollment. If users are able to endure long page-loading delays, they are presented with the website’s privacy policy, a ubiquitous fine-print feature on websites that often go unread. Nevertheless, users are asked to check off a box that they agree to the terms.

Growing concerns about identity theft and fraud have led the Illinois Department of Insurance to issue a public warning, just as the new health insurance exchanges enter their implementation phase.

Concern focuses on those charged with assisting Illinoisans with enrollment to the new health insurance exchanges, the so-called “navigators.”

Navigators will “educate consumers about the health insurance Marketplace, answer health coverage-related questions, and facilitate consumers’ selection of affordable health coverage through the Marketplace,” according to the navigator training manual.

This will give navigators access to individuals’ personally identifiable information: the information necessary for identity theft.

The Illinois Department of Insurance warns people about giving their personal information through “unsolicited telephone calls of any kind,” as well as to people pretending to be navigators.

“We have been made aware that scams are possible,” said Kimberly Parker, a Department of Insurance spokesperson. “If someone is at your door, err on the side of caution.”

Some steps have been taken to help citizens discern real navigators from frauds. Real navigators will carry licenses provided by the Illinois Department of Insurance. Their names can also be found on an online directory.

However, to find the online directory citizens first have to find the Department of Insurance website, assuming they have Internet access at all.

Other steps are self-contradictory. Although the warning says citizens should “look for government seals, logos or web addresses to make sure the information comes from a trusted source,” it also warns about “entities that have sound-alike government or company names.”

The Illinois Department of Insurance is not the only institution warning about identity theft in connection with Obamacare navigators.

In August, the attorneys general of 13 states signed a letter listing their concerns about consumer privacy protection in connection with the navigator program. The letter highlights a risk of inadequate training for navigators and fewer consumer protections than is provided in the market—particularly regarding who is liable if information is stolen.

The letter states that the navigator program’s requirements are “less demanding than many federal privacy requirements, such as those applicable to federal census workers … without more protections, this is a privacy disaster waiting to happen.”

Concern also reached Congress.

A congressional report titled “Risks of Fraud and Misinformation with ObamaCare Outreach Campaign: How Navigator and Assister Program Mismanagement Endangers Consumers” examines testimony from officials responsible for implementing the program.

Among its conclusions, “the main concern for consumers is the heightened risk of identity theft and financial loss from a poorly managed outreach campaign.”

The state of Illinois has tried to put extra safeguards in place for its navigator program. Illinois requires navigators to pass a background check to get a state navigator license, although this is not in federal requirements. The state also passed laws allowing the Department of Insurance to revoke navigator licenses in cases of misconduct.

However, navigator training lasts only three days, and much of it is spent completing a 20-hour online course. Concern centers on how adequately they are prepared to handle personal information.

The “Health Insurance Marketplace Navigator Standard Operating Procedures Manual” devotes only a couple of pages to how navigators should secure personal information. Among its tips to navigators are instructions to clear web browser histories, lock up portable devices that may carry such information and advice to “not leave documents that contain PII or tax return information on printers and fax machines.”

Questions about navigators’ proper role leaves open why they should be handling personal information at all.

“Navigators are a good idea,” said state Sen. William Haine, D-Alton, who sponsored the legislation that is now the Insurance Navigator Act. “Their mission is to bring people into the marketplace, not keep their documents. With insurance agents, however, it’s a different story.”

It should come as no surprise that some will take advantage of the confusion – identity theft is a big and growing problem. And stealing someone’s identity requires very little in the way of personal information./b

“The main piece of personal identifying information that can lead to all types of identity theft is the Social Security number,” explained Eva Velazquez, president of the Identity Theft Resource Center. “This is exceptionally true for governmental identity theft and benefit fraud, such as obtaining government assistance or filing of taxes.”

According to the Consumer Sentinel Network, a report that helps law enforcement track identity theft crimes, there were nearly 13,000 Illinoisan victims in 2012 alone. More than 40 percent of those were described as “government documents or benefits fraud.”

“There has been a great rise in tax return fraud. One sign of evidence of this is the huge amount of activity by the IRS recently to fight such fraud,” said Velazquez. “At the ITRC we always stress the need to find balance between security and convenience. As organizations attempt to make it more convenient for consumers to do things such as file taxes or apply for benefits, the opportunity for fraud will grow.”

Since convenience is crucial to the success of the new health insurance exchanges, the importance of security has fallen to the wayside.

“The health exchanges are opening a Pandora’s box of new crimes,” said Russell Butler, of the National Identity Theft Victims Assistance Network. “Everybody is at risk. You could be poor with no income and people could use that to obtain benefits.”

Butler also added that identity crimes have become more sophisticated over the years, with victims even having their medical identity used for treatments.

“As things get more automated, there is more opportunity for fraud,” he said.

***************************************************

Navigators get three days of online training!!! no background checks…honor system…

California is slipping back into its original status of a Mexican territory. Jerry Brown, its walking corpse of a governor, is making the state a sanctuary for illegal immigrants:

The measure is the second milestone immigration bill signed by the governor in three days. On Thursday, he approved a measure allowing immigrants in the country illegally to receive California driver’s licenses.

I wonder if the Southern Poverty Law Center and other leftist watchdogs will condemn California for interfering in an area of law that’s supposed to be the province of the federal government? I wonder…

for heaven’s sakes…what more ammo does the opposition need…this is like the government forcing individuals…many who do not want to go…over the cliff and into an identity crisis and financial ruin…

The evidence is everywhere. The question is how is the ‘opposition’ using it? A friend of mine excoriated me for being against ObamaCare, and therefore against bumbles, asking how could I be against people getting FREE health insurance?

The four-hour lineup of “On The Record with Greta van Susteren,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” “The Kelly File” and “Hannity” brought in more viewers overall than the MSNBC and CNN lineups combined, according to the early Nielsen figures. Fox News Channel generated more than 2 million viewers, compared with 1,009,000 for MSNBC and 516,000 for CNN. Among viewers between 25 and 54, Fox News Channel attracted 329,000, while MSNBC attracted 314,000 and CNN generated 144,000.

The new four-hour lineup helped Fox News Channel increase total viewers by 15% and viewers between 25 and 54 by 6% compared to its performance in the third quarter of 2013, according to the Nielsen figures.

After initially boasting it received 5 million hits the first day, the California Obamacare site revised that number down to, um, 500,000. They clarified that they had 5 million page views, not quite the same thing as unique viewers.

This probably wasn’t the way President Obama wanted the first week of his signature policy initiative to go.

The health-care law’s new online marketplaces, or “exchanges,” stumbled out of the block last week as reports of long wait times, stalled websites, and repeated error messages popped up across the country. Not only were most users unable to purchase the individual-market plans offered for the first time on October 1, but various bugs and glitches prevented visitors from even getting onto the sites meant to sell them — especially the federally run marketplaces set up for the 26 states not running their own. The Obama administration has been shifty about both the cause of the sites’ sluggishness as well as the total enrollment numbers up to this point, which has only added to the embarrassment around the unveiling.

Here are some of the biggest “fails” from both the federal and state-run sites from the past week:

1. 99 Percent of Obamacare Applications Hit a Wall [snip]

2. Media’s Favorite Obamacare Enrollee Didn’t Actually Enroll
Chad Henderson drew tons of attention from top media outlets when the Obama administration identified him as a successful enrollee on the federal exchanges, only for it to be revealed by his father that he did not, in fact, enroll. Reason’s Peter Suderman tracked down the elder Henderson, who was surprised by the news of his son’s supposed accomplishment. Chad, a 21-year-old Georgia resident, was also discovered to be an Obama and OFA volunteer, and even said on his Facebook page that he was paid quarterly “to post political stuff as ‘advocacy,’” which he later said was just a joke. Henderson tried to clarify that by “enroll” he meant that he had submitted an application without actually picking a plan, and blamed the media for not understanding what he meant. Reporters had seized on Henderson’s story because they could not track down anyone else who’d successfully enrolled on the federal exchanges.

14. Kentucky Marketplace Customers Have No “Expectation of Privacy” [snip]

15. McAfee: Obamacare Is “a Hacker’s Wet Dream” [snip]
McAfee, Inc., founder John McAfee slammed Obamacare’s lack of security precautions and predicted “millions” of identity thefts because of it. “This is a hacker’s wet dream — I cannot believe that they did this,” McAfee said on the Fox Business Network.

Either we are living in a bizzaro world, I’m having a mild stroke and, as a result, am hallucinating or bumbles is deserving of praise. I think I am just having a mild stroke. In any case, Congress should be commended for its behind closed doors distrust of one of bumble’s closest allies.

It seems no one in the White House press corps has any questions for the president about Obamacare or the health insurance exchange web sites.
—————–
Not exactly a curious lot–are they. Good little Nazis. Couldn’t think of even one little question to ask him. Not even one. Not even how does it feel to be a black president who is being targeted by a bunch of mean white republicans just because he wants to bankrupt the country–something perhaps along those line–to tee it up for his next sermon. Down on your knees big media! Assume the position! And do what you do best: suck.

I anyone had any doubt about the vicious and petty character of Barack Obama and his administration the past week should have put those doubts to rest. Not even Nixon’s “enemies list” can compete with Obama. Nixon’s list was focused on not inviting certain pustulent bags of crap, like Daniel Schorr, to White House function. Obama and his minions have effectively declared all Americans the enemy in an attempt to make the impact of the government shutdown artificially painful.

This could not succeed without the assistance of a corps of facilitators, Little Eichmanns, if you will, who are willing to abuse their fellow citizens in order to better serve their master. The most prominent of these is a yob named Jonathan Jarvis who runs the National Park Service.

Since the shutdown began last week the National Park Service has lived up to its reputation as a churlish, imperious, and unreasonable steward of the nation’s parks and monuments.

The World War II Memorial was shutdown. This is a memorial that has always had unrestricted access.
The Vietnam War Memorial, another memorial that has had unrestricted access for decades, has been shutdown.
The Lincoln Memorial, likewise open to the public around the clock, has been shutdown.
The National Park Service has shut down the C&O Canal towpath. This national park has been open to bikers and hikers without monitoring for decades.
The National Park Service has evicted homeowners from their homes simply because it is on land leased from the federal government.
The National Park Service has ordered the closure of the privately owned and operated Claude Moore Colonial Farm.
The National Park Service has closed a privately run hotel and restaurant on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.

None of these facilities need any support whatsoever from the National Park Service. Instead of saving money, funds have been expended over and above requirements in pursuit of this asshattery. More importantly, none of this could happen without the willing and enthusiastic cooperation of bureaucrats whose first allegiance is to a political party and not to the American people. In fact, we know the National Park Service leadership has ordered park rangers to make life needlessly difficult.

The actions of Jon Jarvis and the National Park Service have been juvenile, mean spirited, and shameful. There needs to be a severe and ruthless reckoning for Jarvis and everyone in the National Park Service who deliberately inflicted financial damage and needless inconvenience on the people they are sworn to serve.

John Stosell does a great job of summing up this whole shut-down nonsense:

“Government wants you to play a role in the “shutdown” of the federal government. Your role is to panic.

Republicans and Democrats both assume that shutting some government is a terrible thing. The press concurs. “Shutdown threatens fragile economy,” warns Politico. “Federal workers turn to prayer,” laments The Washington Post.

If the public starts noticing that life goes on as usual without all 3.4 million federal workers, we might get dangerous ideas, like doing without so much government. Politicians don’t want that.

They’d rather have us worry about how America will cope.

President Obama gave a speech where he actually said we need to keep government open for the sake of people like the person working for the Department of Agriculture “out there helping some farmers make sure that they’re making some modest profit,” and the Department of Housing and Urban Development “helping somebody buy a house for the first time.”

Give me a break. Farmers don’t need bureaucrats to teach them how to make a profit, and Americans can buy first homes without HUD helping a chosen few. Americans would make more profit and afford better homes if they didn’t have to spend a third of national income on federal taxes.

Bureaucrats, acting like bullies, protest the partial closures by doing things like cutting off access to public parks — even privately funded ones. Federal cops block access to outdoor war memorials and much of Mt. Rushmore. They block access to motels and order people out of private homes that happen to sit on federal land. The Washington Free Beacon reports, “The closure of a Virginia park that sits on federal land, even though the government provides no resources for its maintenance or operation.”

This is shutdown theater.

It’s similar to the fake “austerity measures” in other countries. We’re told that Europe’s slow economic growth is a result of “austerity” embraced by European governments.

But there hasn’t really been any austerity. England, where a “conservative” government is in charge, increased government spending by 4 percent.

“Austerity” in Greece — supposedly so drastic that the public has little choice but to riot in protest — meant changes like reducing mandatory severance pay to one entire year (instead of two!).

In the U.S., Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) told CNN the federal government has cut so much spending that there’s just nothing left to cut: “The cupboard is bare! There’s no more cuts to make!”

What? The federal government spends almost 4 trillion dollars! The government cupboard overflows! We fund entire cabinet departments that are worse than useless. The Labor Department interferes with actual labor. Commerce would flow more smoothly without Commerce Department bureaucrats channeling money to their cronies.

The government hasn’t cut spending — it never does. After the last shutdowns, politicians even voted to award retroactive pay to government workers who didn’t work. Bet they do it again this time. The federal government remains the biggest employer in the country. President Obama says so with pride.

Compare this to what happens in the private sector in tough times: AT&T cut 40,000 workers. Sears cut 50,000. IBM: 60,000. They weren’t easy decisions, but they enabled the companies to stay profitable. With fewer workers, leaner companies found more efficient ways to get things done.

And the rest of us barely noticed. We expect change and adaptation in free-market institutions. But it doesn’t happen in government. Government just grows.

Maybe the ugliest part of this story is that the city that whines most about suffering through the shutdown, Washington, D.C., is now the richest geographic area in America. Washington got richer while the rest of America didn’t. Over the past 12 years, median income in the U.S. dropped about 6.5 percent — but not in D.C.! There, it rose 23 percent. Four of the five richest counties now surround Washington, D.C.

No wonder politicians and bureaucrats are convinced big government is essential to keep the economy going — it is essential to keep them going.”
COPYRIGHT 2013 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

“I really don’t like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this.”

If you had to crystallize the Democratic Party’s greatest fear into a single sentence, it would be the one above. This was the sentiment expressed by Cindy Vinson, a 60-year-old retired teacher and San Jose, California resident, who learned last week that she will be responsible for $1,800 more in annual costs for an individual health care policy following the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

“I was laughing at [House Speaker John] Boehner – until the mail came today,” Tom Waschura, a 52-year-old Portola Valley resident and partisan Democrat who discovered his family of four will now be responsible for $10,000 more in insurance costs.

The public will be hard pressed to find a Republican inside the Beltway who believes shutting down the government was a great idea. The polls conducted prior to and immediately following the shutdown show that the public was opposed to using this extraordinary tactic to defund the ACA.

But in the wake of last week’s “excruciatingly frustrating” Obamacare roll-out, to quote Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff, the shutdown appears like less of a flailing overreaction to the ACA and more like a noble last stand.

Even some in the media are warming to the idea that the Republican Party might find their attacks on the ACA vindicated by its clunky roll-out. If only the media were not singularly focused on the chaos created by an unnecessary shutdown, they dishonestly lament.

This is nonsense. It is demeaning to their audience to suggest that the public, like the press, is simply unable to wrap their heads around two simultaneously unfolding stories at once. Secondly, it ignores what both Vinson and Waschura have already concluded: that the GOP forced a shutdown over the implementation of the ACA. They did not need a compliant press corps to guide them to that conclusion. They were paying attention.

Republicans have done a rather spectacular job of mismanaging the communications effort over this shutdown. The GOP appeared to hope that by refusing to prosecute the conflict they started, it would simply resolve itself. Indeed, reports indicate that the GOP in Congress has spent more time attempting to position their particular faction as bearing the least responsibility for the shutdown than seeking an advantageous position in negotiations with Congressional Democrats and the president.

But events might just be conspiring to redeem the GOP in the eyes of voters. This shutdown will be inextricably linked to the roll-out of the ACA. And, if Obamcare’s public debut does not improve, voters may look back on the shutdown as being partially justified.

Three Major Demonstrations Converge Against Obama This Coming Weekend!

Whether you are upset that Obama is helping the illegal alien invasion of America, trying to pass a nation destroying Amnesty with the help of GOP traitors in Congress, or his efforts to cause unnecessary hardships for our veterans trying to visit memorials, you have several opportunities to express yourself this weekend!

Reporters Living in Fear of Obama Thugs: “This is the most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered”

We still have no answers why the Obama “Justice” Department targeted James Rosen of Fox News or tapped the phone lines of the Associated Press. And clearly the media is too afraid to speak up. America, it was a fun experiment while it lasted.

Many reporters covering national security and government policy in Washington these days are taking precautions to keep their sources from becoming casualties in the Obama administration’s war on leaks. They and their remaining government sources often avoid phone conversations and e-mail exchanges, arranging furtive one-on-one meetings instead.

“We have to think more about when we use cellphones, when we use e-mail and when we need to meet sources in person,” said Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor of the Associated Press. “We need to be more and more aware that government can track our work without talking to our reporters, without letting us know.”

These concerns, expressed by numerous journalists I interviewed, are well-founded. Relying on the 1917 Espionage Act, which was rarely invoked before President Obama took office, this administration has secretly used the phone and e-mail records of government officials and reporters to identify and prosecute government sources for national-security stories.

If the media had any dignity they’d boycott this administration and skip the daily Jay Carney briefings. But breaking up is so hard to do.

It is all for naught if the merge the CR and debt ceiling negotiation, and leave Obamacare in place. Paul Ryan continues to disappoint me. Its like he always looks for ways to cave. He has always got defeat on his mind.
—————————————
This is the Strategy. Now Do It.

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | October 9th, 2013 at 12:15 AM |

Conservatives need to push the debt ceiling fight off the front burner to after Christmas.

Republican Leaders are begging us to merge the continuing resolution fight and debt ceiling fight. They covet this with all their mind and heart.

They do not want a stand alone fight on Obamacare. They want to conflate it with the debt ceiling so they can do a grand bargain and leave Obamacare alone.

Consider Rep. Paul Ryan’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. He wants a grand bargain and not once mentions Obamacare. Not once.

Friends, as I noted the other day, we lose everything if we merge the continuing resolution and debt ceiling fights.

What’s more, if the debt ceiling gets pushed to just before Christmas, the GOP will collapse in that fight just like they did with Obamacare in 2009.

I think somebody like Steve Scalise, who chairs the Republican Study Committee, needs to propose a short-term debt limit for a few weeks and attach to it the Full Faith and Credit Act that ensures the Treasury Department prioritizes interest payments in the event the debt limit is ever not increased. This would buy us some time to finish the fight to defund Obamacare and set us up well to fight the next long-term debt limit increase to the death by removing some of the President’s scare tactics. How do Republican Leaders not adopt and push such a proposal? How does Obama not accept it without looking completely unreasonable?

Regardless, the only path to victory in this shutdown is to keep our fire on Obamacare and our focus on the defunding effort. We can still undermine Obamacare, but we need to resist the attempt to merge this with the debt limit and hold the line on the continuing resolution. Otherwise we will lose on both.

As long as the conversation stays on the debt ceiling, we are not talking about the deeply unpopular Obamacare. The GOP needs to immediately get a short-term debt increase done and keep the fight on Obamacare in the continuing resolution.

We cannot get both the debt ceiling and Obamacare done at the same time. They must be separate fights or the GOP will surrender on all fronts.

Leanora
October 9, 2013 at 5:31 am
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They need to understand that they have failed the country, failed their profession and if they have any conscience at all, they have failed themselves. A free media is supposed to be one of our protections against the rise of totalitarian government and the destruction of our way of life. At this point, they have NO RAISON D’ETRE. No legitimate reason to exist. They have degenerated to the point that they are nothing more than a bunch of soap and deodorant salemen, willing participants and/or craven spectators in the demise of this nation. Do they comprehend ANY of this? Or is it all just a blur? How can anyone with a press badge fail to ask one question at a press conference in a situation like this? Does it occur to any of them that the county, whether it realizes it or not is counting on them. Every one of them is there to do a job, and won the struggle in their own career against other aspirants to their jobs, whether by means foul or fair, and now that they have climbed the mountain, the have an institutional duty beyond their 401 k and next bonus. Only a pack of dead souls would sit there in silence. And now they should resign in disgrace. When Dana Bash asked the right question, how many of them stood with her, and how many said there but for the grace of god goeth I. I will lend my imprimatur to whatever Obama wants. I am here to serve only him. Do you think any of these faux jouranalists gets it? I don’t. The tool of a lawyer is the legal argument, and the tool of journalists is the probing question. To ask no questions means they have abdicated their role. And to aggressively attack the other party compounds the offense. Well . . . that is my view of these people–dead souls.

There is no luke warm hell for these journalists. This is what comes of their Faustian Pact with this administration. As previously noted, we are dealing with a demon. Sooner or later, anyone who comes near him gets destroyed. You could write a science fiction story about this, only it wouldn’t be fiction. Go back and look at that video on Obama, which I took off of Larry Johnson’s site. It gives the whole unsavory history of Obama–the one that big media chose to ignore and attack others for exposing. And now they are being forced to consume the fruits of that poisonous tree.

“Government wants you to play a role in the “shutdown” of the federal government. Your role is to panic.
——————————–
Rather than panic, we need to realize that whether at the ballot box, or through automation, or through reoganization, or through national bankruptcy, these people, or at least most of them are expendable. That is especially true of our benighted and cowardly White House Press Corps, who surrender faster than the Italian Army, or the illustrious Senator Corbett (R-Tn).

And my one prayer is when the curtain finally falls on this benighted administration, and our nation is on the verge of default, our sense of national unity is laid asunder, and our constitution is shredded, that we be spared those I was there, this is what really happened, and he was not quite the demi god that everyone at the time believed he was, and the reason I am telling this to you now, even though I failed to do so at the time, is because I am a journalist–I really am, and I owe it to my profession and my pocket book to tell you the real story now, so that when a Republican President uses these same tactics to destroy what is left of our nation, after giving our first black president a pass, that we can stand like the Rock of Gibralater against him. Not only have I know interest whatsoever in those books, unless they are from people like Woodward who was willing to tell the truth in the moment. I say don’t write those kind of books. And it they are written, burn them. Why help the same people who betrayed us when it counted/

I’m “hung up” getting US Rep district addresses. If you’re bored (NOT likely with this post) , scroll down at http://nunes.house.gov/ to see his “Digest” which is updated on Fridays. Amazingly it is right on the home page and goes on and on.

Does anyone know if DC mail room is fully operative during a shut down? If I was sure, I could quit this current & onerous task.

Reporters Living in Fear of Obama Thugs: “This is the most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered”
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Question: is this the price of living large–or living the American dream as jouralists? If so, then I say they are expendable. They are taking up space, and really should step aside for those who are up to the task, of speaking truth to power. I guess maybe that is it. The only thing that binds they together is fear. In which case, they need to get out.

I have a friend with roots in the journalist profession. She pleads the other side of the case. She tells me you (and she) have the time to reflect on these things, whereas these poor little journalists are too caught up in their own lives, and minute by minute demands of their work to reflect on what they have failed to do. I don’t buy it. I think it is one of those times where Justice Frankfurther was wrong when he says we should not despair when wisdom (in this case courage) comes late, because too often it never comes at all.

BTW. Pelosi’s site has her Twitter feed prominent top rignt. It was showing her tweet that she was at national mall with immigrants. I could not resist replying and retweeting. Surprisingly I was not restricted from doing so. It was fun.

This article was posted at Hoocoodanode blog. There’s good news and bad. The good news is that a few of our elected officials who represent the Barack District have been arrested. The bad news is that they’ve been released. Our government officials are engaging in street theater. The narrator is Carney.

Ever see the movie Wag the Dog? Well, congressional progressives have taken the plot to new extremes of ridiculousness. Instead of a cover-up of a presidential sexual transgression, we’re to be distracted from heretofore unimaginable Obominations.

Yesterday, while US military veterans and other Americans have been Barrycaded from our national memorials and public parks around the country, illegal immigrants were granted permission to stage yet another amnesty event on the same grounds forbidden to taxpaying American citizens.

To sweeten the pot for members of the Obama Pravda, the usual suspects showed up to support the illegal immigrants:

Several House Democrats were arrested near the Capitol on Tuesday during a march for immigration reform.

Approximately 200 demonstrators were arrested, according to U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman Lt. Kim Schneider. The demonstration activity has concluded, Schneider said, and all roads that had been closed are open.

Those arrested will face charges of “crowding, obstructing and incommoding,” according to Schneider.

First of all, this is not about immigration reform, regardless of what the CNN “report” claims. It’s about blanket amnesty for at a minimum 11 or 12 million illegal immigrants. Reform refers to policies and this Mexican-flag-waving kabuki theater performance was not about fixing antiquated immigration policy issues.

Now, do ask yourself, what do these Congress Critters have in common with illegal immigrants?

The White House spin says:

Following the arrests, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney issued a statement in support of the protests.

“The enthusiastic demonstration of support for immigration reform this week has proven to Congress that the broad coalition behind commonsense solutions to our nation’s broken immigration laws is as strong as it has ever been,” Carney said in a written statement. “It is time for House Republicans to put politics aside and join Democrats to fix our broken immigration system and make the economy stronger.”

Unsurprisingly, this congressional delegation consisted only of Democrats who are banking on amnesty for these illegal immigrants that will, in turn, guarantee a steady flow of Democrat voters in 2014 and beyond.

Finally, it’s just one more distraction staged to draw your attention away from the disaster that is Obamacare, Benghazi, and a long long long laundry list of this administration’s failures and impeachable offenses.”

Harriet Christian has passed away. Harriet raised hell with the RBC in 2008, when the voted to disenfranchise MI voters,awarding votes they had cast for Hillary to Barack. She was one gutsy lady. RIP Harriet. You gave ’em hell.

A private foundation has stepped forward to cover death benefits for the families of troops who’ve been killed in combat after the Pentagon confirmed the payments have been suspended as a result of the partial government shutdown.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced Tuesday that the Maryland-based Fisher House Foundation has offered to cover the $100,000 payments that the government typically pays out to families within three days of a soldier’s death.

“I am so grateful that the Fisher House Foundation volunteered to help military families to make sure there is no funding gap during a time of unimaginable grief, ” Manchin said in a statement, adding that the organization has agreed to cover flights, hotels and other incidentals for family members.

Obama is now openly attacking we Americans and all of our institutions

Obama: Time for Americans to embrace my Dictatorship and their own slavery, or else
Acting more and more like a cheap version of Josef Stalin or even Hugo Chavez and, increasingly, drunk on his personally perceived absolute power over US citizens, Obama is now openly attacking we Americans and all of our institutions.

His partial shutdown of the US government (aka “ObamaGov”) has allowed him to affect all manner of dark mischief against us and he is laughing even more voraciously at us, while he pretends to put on his ’serious face’. As one angry Park Ranger put it: “It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation. We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting!”

Catholic Military priests­ever since the Catholic Church went against Dictator-in-Chief Obama over his abortion demands in ObamaCare he has held a vendetta against it­have been told by Obama syndicate members that they will actually be arrested by his Gestapo if they attempt to minister to soldiers during the partial ObamaGov shutdown.

Veterans’ Memorials have been shut down by Obama and his syndicate, while elderly Vets have been threatened with arrest if they do not comply with the dictator’s commands. Access to other public sites has been banned…including Mount Rushmore where cones were placed in the streets to disallow American citizens to even stop and take pictures. In NYC, Vets were arrested because they visited the Vietnam Memorial. The ObamaGov does not own these, folks…We-the-People do! We PAY the federal government to maintain them. Maybe it’s time that our States begin taking them back and paid themselves to maintain their own national treasures and parks.

…the media is afraid of the O admin…they have just about admitted it and written about it…they are afraid of being objective…the prosecution of the AP,FOX, whistleblowers, shutting down of leaks on threat of more prosecution, NSA surveillance, the usual Chicago intimidation tactics, the SpiteHouse in all its glory…it is all there…transparency be damned…

I would not be surprised if the media are warned before these publicity stunts O throws together to ‘drone’ on…they are probably instructed before the stunts not to ask questions about such and such…or cued in a nonverbal way to stick to the O party line and don’t rock the boat and leave poor O speechless and looking like a fool…

…just look at how far Carl Bernstein has fallen…every other word out of his mouth is to brand everyone opposing O as ‘McCarthyism’

…the media just outright lies, or lies by ommission…

very frustrating…they have no honor, even if their lies are at the actual expense of the country and americans…pathetic…and just getting worse…

The federal government shutdown has washed away – at least for now – a long-standing sand castle contest that raises money for arts programs at public schools.

The contest was to take place Saturday at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, with teams from 26 public elementary schools collaborating with adults from design-related firms to build fantastical structures of water and sand.

But the 30th annual contest was postponed “indefinitely” on Tuesday. The beach is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which has furloughed most of its employees and revoked all event permits until there’s a resolution of the standoff in Washington, D.C., over funding for the 2013-14 federal budget.

“We are in purgatory right now,” said Julie MacDonald, executive director of Leap, the San Francisco nonprofit that uses the contest as a fundraiser to support its art education programs in Bay Area schools. “We have every intention of holding the event, but we’re powerless to reschedule until the government is fully operational.”

Reporters Living in Fear of Obama Thugs: “This is the most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered”
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Question: is this the price of living large–or living the American dream as jouralists? If so, then I say they are expendable. They are taking up space, and really should step aside for those who are up to the task, of speaking truth to power. I guess maybe that is it. The only thing that binds they together is fear. In which case, they need to get out.
___________

I think they are getting scared of him now. And, perhaps many in media are just now realizing what the rest of us knew all along – Obama was never the cool, oh-so-caring and brilliant, ultra-liberal individual he and his PR machine made him appear to be – with their help.

I heard some radio host discussing Piers Morgan’s response to John Stewart’s interview of Sabelius during which he asked her some simple, basic questions about why big business and others could be exempt from participating O care, while regular people can’t She couldn’t give him a straight answer, of course, and the crowd actually laughed at some of the answers she tried to pass off for the truth. The interview is posted above, I think.

I would rather watch a tiger rip a water buffalo apart (as much as I hate seeing that in nature shows) than to watch Piers, so I didn’t see his response. But, reportedly, he was shocked at Sebelius’s lack of knowledge and inadequate responses to Stewart’s questions, and registered his concern about competence. Really, Piers? You really thought everything was just as Obama and his little helpers presented it? We ought to be reporting the news to him – not the other way around. I really thought the prog media types from sources like CNN and MSNBC were just covering up for Barack, and for his failed attempts to govern. I never thought they were actually stupid enough to think things were going well in the country transformed by Barack. I figured that even though they were determined to present Obama as perfect, they didn’t really buy that pile he’s been selling from day one. Maybe they were – and are.

Harriet Christian has passed away. Harriet raised hell with the RBC in 2008, when the voted to disenfranchise MI voters,awarding votes they had cast for Hillary to Barack. She was one gutsy lady. RIP Harriet. You gave ‘em hell.

——-
I am so sad to hear that Harriet has died. I spent some time with her in Denver during the Convention and we shared a lot of rants and laughs together. She was the face of the PUMA movement to me and I have to guess that the cigarettes she loved may have shortened her life.

Terence McAuliffe, the former chairman of the national Democratic Party and current Virginia gubernatorial candidate, was one of hundreds of people who invested in variable annuities that used terminally ill patients as the annuitants.

McAuliffe and others became owners of the investment instruments through Cranston estate planner Joseph Caramadre. Caramadre pleaded guilty to stealing the identities of terminally ill patients and using that information to falsely apply for annuities and bonds with death puts.

Prosecutors said Caramadre cost insurance companies between $37 million and $48 million from the scheme.

Caramadre, with the help of a partner, would use personal information from terminally ill patients on investment applications that contained death benefits. The actual owners of the annuity would be Caramadre or hundreds of investors. In exchange for the personal information, Caramadre often times would help the families of the terminally ill to pay for funeral expenses.

Besides McAuliffe, Robert Flanders, a former justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, is on the investment list. Gaythorne “Poochie” Angell, a long-time bookie and mob associate, was also an investor, along with Monsignor Raymond Bastia, who handles financial planning for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence.

There is no evidence that the investors knew that Caramadre was stealing the identities of the terminally ill patients.

Caramadre’s use of unrelated owners of the annuities was legal.

Caramadre and his partner have pleaded guilty to the investment scheme. Prosecutors said Caramadre made millions.

Caramadre is being held at the Wyatt Detention Center and has yet to be sentenced.

Political pundit Dick Morris believes that a suit brought by Oklahoma against Obamacare could be what ultimately knocks down the president’s healthcare law.

“Why didn’t anyone else think of it?”Morris wrote in The Hill. “Unlike the suit brought by 26 state attorney generals, this suit does not make a constitutional objection to the Affordable Care Act. Instead, it uses the language of the law to challenge the elaborate system of subsidies, tax credits, and individual or employer mandates and fines the act has spawned.”

The suit, filed by Oklahoma’s Republican Attorney General Scott Pruitt, was published in the Case Western Reserve School of Law Journal. The article contends that the wording of the Affordable Care Act only allows a subsidy for health insurance for those who got their coverage through state exchanges rather than the federal exchange.

According to AMTV’s Christopher Greene, Barack Obama pre-planned the government shutdown weeks in advance. Greene talks about the liberal main stream media propaganda newspapers’ accusations regarding conservatives planning the shutdown but the investigation into them and what he finds is shocking in the extreme and runs contrary to the BS Americans are being fed from the MSM.

VotingHillary
October 7, 2013 at 11:57 pm
jbstonesfan
October 7, 2013 at 11:49 pm
I received notice the plan my PA has been on for years may not be offered upon renewal.
_____________________________________________________
I am dreading this year’s healthcare/benefits meeting at work.
****************

I am too! Mine went up 3,500 last year. On top of that, they cut benefits and dropped our weekend pay bonus, and changed the retirement plan… deceasing their input by a huge amount. In total, I lost nearly 30,000 a year last year.

The actor has been critical of Democrats and the president and presumes his political opinions will cost him jobs.

After repeatedly criticizing President Barack Obama, actor James Woods suggested in a tweet late Tuesday that his politics may cost him work in Hollywood.

Woods has been critical of Obama before but in the past few days seems particularly incensed at the president’s handling of the partial government shutdown. He tweeted, for example: “This President is a true abomination. To have barricaded the WW2 vets, but allow illegal aliens privilege…”

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) had what some colleagues called “a heated exchange” and what she described as “a conversation” with President Obama during a White House meeting Wednesday afternoon regarding the District’s budget constraints as a result of the partial government shutdown.

Norton attended the meeting in the White House East Room with nearly 200 House Democrats and was one of a handful given the opportunity to ask the president a question. When she was called upon, Norton pressed Obama to support a House-passed bill that would permit the District to use its locally raised tax funds to maintain operations until Dec. 15.

Democrats, including Obama, have held fast in opposition to such piecemeal funding bills, saying Republicans must come to a deal to fund the entire government, not just favored segments.

Making her point, Norton spoke over the president and refused to yield the microphone, according to a lawmaker who attended the event. The lawmaker described Norton as “strident,” “self-absorbed” and “parochial” in her exchange with Obama.

But Obama held firm to his belief that Republicans should work to reopen the entire federal government and not pass stand-alone spending measures, said the lawmaker, who asked not to be identified in order to speak frankly and maintain relationships with colleagues.

Norton confirmed in an interview that she pressed Obama to support the bill and that she doesn’t care whether some colleagues felt uncomfortable about the exchange.

The Associated Press very unwisely reported that Democrat candidate for Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe lied to a federal official. Its evidence? A Grand Jury report with the initials “T.M.” ­ and it seems like not much else!

Ann Wagner, a former US ambassador and current congresswoman from Missouri, was interviewed about what the protocol would be for a “stand down” order in the event of a consulate being under attack, and she answered what many have suspected already: that’s an order that would come from Obama himself.

This is one of the reasons that the Obama administration has essentially refused to provide details about where Obama was at or what he was doing during the attack. This is because we know exactly what he was doing ­ ignoring the cries for help for political reasons.

Being wrong about policy is one thing. But ignoring the screams of those who work for you because you’d rather them die than accept that your foreign policy is creating more terrorists is a level of treason rare, even for the most despotic tyrants.

Drudge 9 AM
Obamacare website cost more than FACEBOOK, TWITTER, LINKEDIN, INSTAGRAM…
‘How can we tax people for not buying a product from a website that doesn’t work?’
Major insurers, Dem allies repeatedly warned Obama admin…
REPORT: WH knew site might not be ready…
POLL: Just 1 in 10 report success…
DNC head says site designed for 50,000 max…
Once you get in, you can’t get out…
Crazzzzzzzy code…
‘It looks like nobody tested it’…
WASHPOST: Not code, but ‘outdated, costly, buggy technology’…
CARNEY: ‘I Don’t Know’ If Obama Has Tried Website…
Hawaii forced to relaunch after zero sign-ups…
and the top headline there states what this prize cost us:
$634,320,919

Has it been confirmed to the satisfaction of anyone here that a Canadian outfit created it?

I take this very personally. Our son is a US Marine, no longer on active duty, he served from 2001 through 2005. His unit did two tours in al Anbar province and four of his guys were killed on my birthday in 2004. I’ve lived through actually feeling guilty that my son is alive when trying to comfort families who’ve lost their Marine and being comforted by them. This is personal.

This is more of the Shutdown Showcase that Obama and his ilk are projecting onto the American people. It’s bad enough that the Brownshirts at the National Park Service have come down to taking the handles off the drinking fountains in the parks, but this crap is enough to make me lock my guns in my friend’s safe.

On NPR’s “Morning Edition” on Wednesday, Washington Post columnist and Fox News contributor George Will attacked President Barack Obama for what seems to be his view of the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers, saying he must have “cut class the day they got to the separation of powers because he seems to consider it not just an inconvenience but an indignity.”

In an interview with National Public Radio’s Steve Inskeep, Will explained that the sort of impasses plaguing the federal government like the budget shutdown are part of what he called “the Madisonian scheme,” which intentionally makes moving the federal government in one direction difficult.

“This is the Madisonian scheme,” Will said, referring to former President James Madison, who has been called “the father of the Constitution.”

We have reached the watershed moment in the shutdown showdown and Barack Obama has detonated his fiscal suicide vest. Obama, despite the acclaim heaped on him by a fawning media, is not too bright when it comes to political tactics. Yesterday, October 8th, was the day that Obama shot himself in the foot. Two events have put Obama on his heels. First, as I noted in a piece yesterday, Obama allowed illegal immigrants to take over the Mall in Washington, DC while maintaining restrictions on access to war memorials. Second, Obama directed that DOD stop paying death benefits to the families of military personnel killed in action. Obama’s strategists made a major strategic mistake in going down this road.

In what veterans call an outrageous slight after the ultimate sacrifice, the shuttered federal government is withholding a $100,000 payment, known as the death gratuity, that is normally wired to relatives of fallen service members.

It’s typically sent to families within three days to help cover funeral costs or travel to meet the flag-draped coffins of their loved ones.

“It is upsetting because my husband died for his country, and now his family is left to worry,” said Ashley Peters of Springfield, Mo., whose husband, Joseph, was a special agent assigned to the Army’s 5th Military Police Battalion and was among the five killed. “My husband always said if something happened to him we would be taken care of.”

Obama’s only interest is in demonizing Republicans. In this action he shows he has no regard for our troops or their sacrifice. Obama has awakened a sleeping beast.

The essence of America is our belief in fair play. We do not like someone being given unfair advantage. We expect everyone, rich and poor, to have the same opportunity. In that regard, Obama is demonstrating the exact opposite of fairness. He cuts special deals with big Business to avoid a mandate on health care while making individuals pay the freight. He closes war memorials to veterans, shutters National Parks to American citizens but allows illegal immigrants to hold a rally on public land.

And now, in a move that highlights his political incompetence, Obama has singled out dead servicemen as a pawn for trying to pressure Republicans. That kind of petty vindictiveness is the exact opposite of playing fair. Turns out, Barack Obama has the hunting instincts of Wylie Coyote.

As I have consistently predicted . . . that Boehner would cave, the political class would get their payoffs, Obamacare would go forward, and that this will divide the Republican Party and lay the ground work for the rise of a third party. Now mind you I am not certain of this. I only think it is 99% certain. And by the way, Erickson has connections with Congessional staffers who are in the middle of this and do not speak to big media. What this does, however, is provide that moment of clarity we have been hoping for, where the real battle lines in our political system are drawn. Forget about party label. The battle is between the political class and the American People. And right now there is a vaccuum that needs to be filled, which neither political party is capable of filling. This, coupled with the declining fortunes of our nation on all fronts, will make the business as usual approach of the uniparty unacceptable to the majority of Americans. The dilemma going forward, of course, is that the political class has developed a system of spying on Americans which could thwart or impede political movement toward a new equilibrium more in keeping with the altered states. But if they use those tools of oppression to crush the building forces of change, woe betide them, and their big media enablers, who are the mouthpiece for a corrupt system.

House GOP Preparing to Give Up

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | October 10th, 2013 at 04:30 AM | 92

RESIZE: AAA

I’m being told by several sources that Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor are plotting to give up trying to either defund or delay Obamacare.

This comes at the same time the Obama administration admits it will be months before their Obamacare website will be fixed and Kathleen Sebelius is saying if people want out of the mandate they can pay a fine.

Nonetheless, Cantor, Boehner, and with them Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn are expected to cave in and fully fund, unimpeded, Obamacare.

They will work up a new deal that includes a debt ceiling increase with a few sops to the GOP as cover. The only change they are still considering it the medical device tax repeal, which is being heavily lobbied for by former Boehner and McConnell staffers who left for K Street.

A number of Democrats who are recipients of campaign cash along with these Republicans may provide a crony capitalist bridge over which this one tax repeal can pass while leaving in place all the other taxes, penalties, and fees.

But John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, and John Cornyn will ensure that Obamacare is fully funded and give the American public no delay like businesses have.

In doing so, they will sow the seeds of a real third party movement that will fully divide the Republican Party.

Yesterday, I played golf with an old friend who played on the Canadian tour and now spends part of the year in Palm Springs. He says he sees Boehner down there often, hob nobbing with the multi millionaires, playing golf and smoking cigarets. I told him I played golf with John one time, with a Microsoft tax layer and a Verizon lobbyist. He asked me what that was like. I told him, well, Boehner told me about all the courses he and a former senator from Oklahoma had played, their goal was to play the top 100 in the world, and that wherever they played, they always broke 80. On the first tee I took a look at his swing and wondered whether that was really true. At that time, I had a new driver with a special shaft which reflected what was then the state of the art technology, and marketing hype. Boehner was intrigued by it and asked to borrow it. I said sure, and he proceeded to hit it off the first three holes and managed to hit it down the middle of the fairway and told me how much he liked it. Then on the fourth hole, he used it again and it the ball in the water. Without skipping a beat he said that was not my club, I will now hit my real driver, and proceeded to take a mulligan without counting it. Later in the round, more strokes did not get counted, and golf balls which were hit out of bounds were discovered miraculously in the fairway. It was a remarkable way to break 80. The pro said you have got to be shitting me. I told him, no, I wish I were. And, can you imagine how much worse it would be if you played golf with Obama, who is a lousy golfer, a pathological liar, and hates this country?

What the above illustrates is that for the political class, there are no rules. There is only what they can get away with. As you may recall, this observation was also made by Tray Gowdy when he sat down to explain the difference between being a prosecutor and being a US Representative. But against that back drop, there is the link below, and he explanation which goes along with it (infra.).

This is pretty heated diatribe by Mark Levin. But he is someone to be aware of if you are not already. If there is a conservative break out from the Washington centered Republican Party, which does not represent the American People or the Constitution, but merely pretends to then he will be a key player. He has deep intellectual roots, is a first class debater, and has written several books on the subject, the latest one being The Liberty Amendments.

Sent to me [Greta] by FNC’s Chad Pergram
WASHINGTON, DC – At a press conference with Republican leaders today, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) discussed the opportunity House Republicans will offer President Obama today to move a short-term increase in the debt limit – a good-faith offer on the part of Republicans to meet the president halfway. As Boehner noted, it is now up to President Obama to come to the table to negotiate long-term solutions to reduce our debt and deficits, fund the government, and provide fairness for all Americans under his health care law. Following are Boehner’s remarks:
“You know, the president is fond of saying that no one gets everything they want in a negotiation. And frankly, I agree with that. Nobody gets everything they want. “But over the course of the last 10 days we’ve been trying to have conversations with our Democrat colleagues. They don’t want to talk. The president doesn’t want to talk. We tried to offer bills that would re-open parts of the government only to have them rejected by our counterparts over in the United States Senate.“So what we want to do is to offer the president today the ability to move a temporary increase in the debt ceiling, an agreement to go to conference on the budget, for his willingness to sit down and discuss with us a way forward to re-open the government, and to start to deal with America’s pressing problems.“Listen, it’s time for leadership. It’s time for these negotiations and this conversation to begin. And I would hope that the president would look at this as an opportunity and a good-faith effort on our part to move halfway – halfway to what he’s demanded in order to have these conversations begin.”
Boehnerhttp://gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com/2013/10/10/statement-issued-by-speaker-john-boehners-office/

COMMENTS SO FAR:
Obamacare needs to be REPEALED not just defunded – it is unconstitutional. It violates our right to privacy (among other things) and is now highly discriminatory.

wasnt the offer for conference already on the table. the speaker cleverly deviating from that.

The Obama Administration and the Press
Leak investigations and surveillance in post-9/11 America

U.S. President Barack Obama came into office pledging open government, but he has fallen short of his promise. Journalists and transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure of information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the press. Aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information and broad electronic surveillance programs deter government sources from speaking to journalists.

WASHINGTON, D.C.In the Obama administration’s Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press. Those suspected of discussing with reporters anything that the government has classified as secret are subject to investigation, including lie-detector tests and scrutiny of their telephone and e-mail records. An “Insider Threat Program” being implemented in every government department requires all federal employees to help prevent unauthorized disclosures of information by monitoring the behavior of their colleagues.

Six government employees, plus two contractors including Edward Snowden, have been subjects of felony criminal prosecutions since 2009 under the 1917 Espionage Act, accused of leaking classified information to the press—compared with a total of three such prosecutions in all previous U.S. administrations. Still more criminal investigations into leaks are under way. Reporters’ phone logs and e-mails were secretly subpoenaed and seized by the Justice Department in two of the investigations, and a Fox News reporter was accused in an affidavit for one of those subpoenas of being “an aider, abettor and/or conspirator” of an indicted leak defendant, exposing him to possible prosecution for doing his job as a journalist. In another leak case, a New York Times reporter has been ordered to testify against a defendant or go to jail.

Compounding the concerns of journalists and the government officials they contact, news stories based on classified documents obtained from Snowden have revealed extensive surveillance of Americans’ telephone and e-mail traffic by the National Security Agency. Numerous Washington-based journalists told me that officials are reluctant to discuss even unclassified information with them because they fear that leak investigations and government surveillance make it more difficult for reporters to protect them as sources. “I worry now about calling somebody because the contact can be found out through a check of phone records or e-mails,” said veteran national security journalist R. Jeffrey Smith of the Center for Public Integrity, an influential nonprofit government accountability news organization in Washington. “It leaves a digital trail that makes it easier for the government to monitor those contacts,” he said.

“I think we have a real problem,” said New York Times national security reporter Scott Shane. “Most people are deterred by those leaks prosecutions. They’re scared to death. There’s a gray zone between classified and unclassified information, and most sources were in that gray zone. Sources are now afraid to enter that gray zone. It’s having a deterrent effect. If we consider aggressive press coverage of government activities being at the core of American democracy, this tips the balance heavily in favor of the government.”

At the same time, the journalists told me, designated administration spokesmen are often unresponsive or hostile to press inquiries, even when reporters have been sent to them by officials who won’t talk on their own. Despite President Barack Obama’s repeated promise that his administration would be the most open and transparent in American history, reporters and government transparency advocates said they are disappointed by its performance in improving access to the information they need.

“This is the most closed, control freak administration I’ve ever covered,” said David E. Sanger, veteran chief Washington correspondent of The New York Times.
Obama and host Jay Leno tape ‘The Tonight Show with Jay Leno’ at NBC Studios on August 6 in Burbank, California. (AFP/Mandel Ngan)
Obama and host Jay Leno tape ‘The Tonight Show with Jay Leno’ at NBC Studios on August 6 in Burbank, California. (AFP/Mandel Ngan)

The Obama administration has notably used social media, videos, and its own sophisticated websites to provide the public with administration-generated information about its activities, along with considerable government data useful for consumers and businesses. However, with some exceptions, such as putting the White House visitors’ logs on the whitehouse.gov website and selected declassified documents on the new U.S. Intelligence Community website, it discloses too little of the information most needed by the press and public to hold the administration accountable for its policies and actions. “Government should be transparent,” Obama stated on the White House website, as he has repeatedly in presidential directives. “Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their government is doing.”

But his administration’s actions have too often contradicted Obama’s stated intentions. “Instead,” New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan wrote earlier this year, “it’s turning out to be the administration of unprecedented secrecy and unprecedented attacks on a free press.”

“President Obama had said that default should be disclosure,” Times reporter Shane told me. “The culture they’ve created is not one that favors disclosure.”

White House officials, in discussions with me, strongly objected to such characterizations. They cited statistics showing that Obama gave more interviews to news, entertainment, and digital media in his first four-plus years in office than Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did in their respective first terms, combined. They pointed to presidential directives to put more government data online, to speed up processing of Freedom of Information Act requests, and to limit the amount of government information classified as secret. And they noted the declassification and public release of information about NSA communications surveillance programs in the wake of Snowden’s leak of voluminous secret documents to The Washington Post and the Guardian.

“The idea that people are shutting up and not leaking to reporters is belied by the facts,” Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, told me, pointing in frustration to anonymously sourced media reports that same day about planning for military action against the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

“We make an effort to communicate about national security issues in on-the-record and background briefings by sanctioned sources,” said deputy White House national security adviser Ben Rhodes. “And we still see investigative reporting from nonsanctioned sources with lots of unclassified information and some sensitive information.”

He cited as an example the administration’s growing, if belated, official openness about its use of drone aircraft to attack suspected terrorists, including declassification of information about strikes in Yemen and Somalia, following revelations about drone attacks in the news media. “If you can be transparent, you can defend the policy,” Rhodes told me. “But then you’re accused of jeopardizing national security. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. There is so much political controversy over everything in Washington. It can be a disincentive.”

The administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post’s investigation of Watergate. The 30 experienced Washington journalists at a variety of news organizations whom I interviewed for this report could not remember any precedent.

“There’s no question that sources are looking over their shoulders,” Michael Oreskes, a senior managing editor of The Associated Press, told me months after the government, in an extensive leak investigation, secretly subpoenaed and seized records for telephone lines and switchboards used by more than 100 AP reporters in its Washington bureau and elsewhere. “Sources are more jittery and more standoffish, not just in national security reporting. A lot of skittishness is at the more routine level. The Obama administration has been extremely controlling and extremely resistant to journalistic intervention. There’s a mind-set and approach that holds journalists at a greater distance.”

Washington Post national security reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a member of CPJ’s board of directors, told me that “one of the most pernicious effects is the chilling effect created across government on matters that are less sensitive but certainly in the public interest as a check on government and elected officials. It serves to shield and obscure the business of government from necessary accountability.”
Obama answers questions from the media in the Brady press briefing room at the White House, April 30. (Reuters/Jason Reed)
Obama answers questions from the media in the Brady press briefing room at the White House, April 30. (Reuters/Jason Reed)

Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief who is now director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, said he thought the combined efforts of the administration were “squeezing the flow of information at several pressure points.” He cited investigations of “leakers and journalists doing business with them” and limitations on “everyday access necessary for the administration to explain itself and be held accountable.”

The Insider Threat Program being implemented throughout the Obama administration to stop leaks—first detailed by the McClatchy newspapers’ Washington bureau in late June—has already “created internal surveillance, heightened a degree of paranoia in government and made people conscious of contacts with the public, advocates, and the press,” said a prominent transparency advocate, Steven Aftergood, director of the Government Secrecy Project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. None of these measures is anything like the government controls, censorship, repression, physical danger, and even death that journalists and their sources face daily in many countries throughout the world—from Asia, the Middle East and Africa to Russia, parts of Europe and Latin America, and including nations that have offered asylum from U.S. prosecution to Snowden. But the United States, with its unique constitutional guarantees of free speech and a free press—essential to its tradition of government accountability—is not any other country.

“The investigation and potential indictment of investigative journalists for the crime of doing their jobs well enough to make the government squirm is nothing new,” Suzanne Nossel, executive director of PEN American Center, wrote earlier this year. “It happens all over the world, and is part of what the Obama administration has fought against in championing press and Internet freedom globally. By allowing its own campaign against national security leaks to become grounds for trampling free expression, the administration has put a significant piece of its very own foreign policy and human rights legacy at risk.”

Financial Times correspondent Richard McGregor told me that, after coming to Washington several years ago from a posting in China, he was surprised to find that “covering this White House is pretty miserable in terms of getting anything of substance to report on in what should be a much more open system. If the U.S. starts backsliding, it is not only a bad example for more closed states, but also for other democracies that have been influenced by the U.S.” to make their governments more transparent.

This report will examine all these issues: legal policies of the Obama administration that disrupt relationships between journalists and government sources; the surveillance programs that cast doubt on journalists’ ability to protect those sources; restrictive practices for disclosing information that make it more difficult to hold the government accountable for its actions and decision-making; and manipulative use of administration-controlled media to circumvent scrutiny by the press.

Hey gang, I’ve been busy with work, and last week on vacation. But I’ve been checking in.

I am NOT surprised that:

* On Oct. 1st, the online exchanges went kerflop. Oct. 10th and they still won’t release the numbers.

* they pumped up the number of hits on their web site with repeat visitors who got kicked out. just the way Twitter and Facebook grab for whatever inflated numbers they can when trying to impress potential advertisers.

* Obummer tries to pawn off all the media blame for government shutdown on the Repubs. But then he exacerbates the pain by having various Federal departments close down as many important facilities as they can to drive home the false pretense that “The Government is CLOSED!”. Closing Amber Alerts??? Really dude??

Oct. 13th Presidential Announcement (9pm, in time to disrupt the Sunday Night football game):

Obama: “With the Oct. 17th debt deadline just days away from exposing me as an inept president who can’t negotiate his way out of a paper bag, I’ve announced martial law in the United States, and have detained the Republican members in the House and Senate, transferring them down to Guantanamo. This morning, the remaining members of the House and Senate passed all the things I’ve been asking for. So you can thank me now for dealing with ‘those who would endanger our country’. With the two houses lacking a quorum, I had to amend the constitution using Exceptional Presidential authority. Good night, and God bless America.”

This man is bold. Let us pray?
Lonegan to GOP: Wait Seven Days. When I Win, Obama Will Fold

“Republicans need to hold firm because seven days from today when Bob Menendez escorts me down the Senate aisle for my swearing in, the message about what our party should do will be clear for all.”
LONEGAN FOR SENATE NEWS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 10, 2013
BOGOTA, NJ – Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan today urged House Republicans “not to capitulate to the president’s unreasonable demands. When I win, Obama will fold.”

Obama DOT Plans use of National Guard to close I-495 Capital Beltway tomorrow?

Sources within the Department of Transportation have revealed that their plan to use National Guard resources to close federally funded Interstate Route 495, circling the nation’s capital, have been approved by unknown White House officials and will be implemented on Friday morning, October 11, in order to thwart the three day Trucker slowdown announced on the Capitol Beltway starting that date, using the federal government shutdown as justification.

The National Guard resources to be used to thwart the truckers will include rifle toting National Guardsmen called up from units that will be coming in from Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia. They will use Guardsmen on foot and using trucks, jeeps and armored vehicles, which will be stationed at all entrance ramps to the Beltway to block incoming traffic starting early Friday morning.

Calls to both the White House and the Department of Transportation to confirm this story were not answered at press time. Unless an announcement is made in advance, it appears the first notice of this new White House plan to punish House GOP members who have cited their Constitutional authority to approve – or not approve – all spending proposed by the White House and their Democratic allies in the Senate, will be early Friday morning.

I was just thinking TP in general needs Sarah NOW. And she’s coming!
Sarah Palin will go to New Jersey Saturday to headline an event for Republican Senate candidate Steve Lonegan, days before the state’s Oct 16. special election.
Lonegan’s campaign and the Tea Party Express announced Wednesday night that Palin, the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee, will appear at a rally at the New Egypt Speedway in South Jersey Saturday afternoon. The announcement comes a week after Palin announced her endorsement for Lonegan, a tea party favorite, in his race against Democrat Cory Booker.
Lonegan used the announcement to criticize Palin’s former opponent, Vice President Joe Biden, for pulling out of a Friday rally for Booker to deal with the ongoing federal government shutdown.
BIDEN BOOKED ABT 2 WEEKS AGO GOING TO BE A No SHOW for Booker.
Snip
Puff ho.

Shadow – What a surprise to see such honesty from a journalist. Maybe there is hope after all.

rgb44hrc, good to see you. Yep, when it comes to Obama, it’s still pretty much – same sh**, different day. He continues to lie and manipulate. The federal government has shut down vet memorials, Old Faithful, Amber Alert (of all things), and the freakin’ beach, just to name a few of the targets of the shutdown. The White House needs to be the next place that is forced to shut down. Close the doors. Turn off the lights. Vacate the premises.

9 Valid Concerns We Can All Have About Obamacare, Without Thinking It Will Literally Bring Hell On Earth

…snip…and so they say:

But just because the law isn’t going to bring hell on earth doesn’t mean we should ignore its imperfections. Below, take a look at some common questions and reasons we can all be concerned about Obamacare.

1. What happens if not enough people enroll?

…and article goes on to state all the concerns the repubs and independents have been raising and have had even before Ocare…the debacle…was forced down our throats…

…so now, some in the media want to investigate the “What if’s?”

…what is so funny is that as you read each of the nine reasons, they read like a laundry list of why not to pursue this monstrosity of Ocare…it reads like a big gamble in a Vegas casino…

Perhaps the fact that the Ocare website crashed into a nightmare…even after some people have filled out private info on a site that is obviously not prepared to protect their privacy…is making the ‘lightbulb’ go on in the heads of these O protectors…Ocare is a failure and will get worse and worse…and when the actual treatment of healthcare for people finally enters into the picture…it will be on display for all to see…

…Ocare will make our nation and citizens…sicker…and weaker…

*******************************************************

caught Dr Ben Carson on Fox last night with Megan…he needs to start coming center stage on Ocare and explain things in detail…he is very articulate and has such a pleasant and nonthreatening way of explaining issues…he is an expert with credibility and a star on this issue…

OT…but for anyone that followed last season, ‘American Horror Story’ is back on FX, season opener last night…Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson, etc…going to be another great season…not for faint hearted or those easily frightened…

OT…but for anyone that followed last season, ‘American Horror Story’ is back on FX, season opener last night…Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson, etc…going to be another great season…not for faint hearted or those easily frightened…
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Thanks S. I’ll admit to being somewhat of a chicken when it comes to that genre. I’m stoked about Doc Martin returning for another season. Still waiting for Lillihammer to return.

Hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans opened the mail last week to find their health insurance plan would no longer exist in 2014 because it does not cover all the essential benefits required by the Affordable Care Act.

The news surprised some who were unaware that provisions in the new law known as “Obamacare” were forcing insurance companies to scrap some plans they had previously offered.

“The Affordable Care Act is driving many changes to products and pricing,” said Thomas Vincz, a spokesman for Horizon. “Horizon BCBSNJ is actively working to help our members find new insurance plans that meet their needs and budget.”

The changes will impact more than 800,000 people in New Jersey who purchase insurance on the individual and small-employer markets, according to Ward Sanders, president of the New Jersey Association of Health Plans.

Horizon, Aetna and others have had to create new plans to meet the requirements mandated by the law.

“Aetna has updated its product portfolio for individuals as well as small group customers to ensure our plans were in compliance with the Affordable Care Act and state laws and regulations for 2014,” said Susan Millerick, a spokeswoman from Aetna. “Generally speaking, the products will dock to a similar product that will be available in 2014, but there will be some difference in benefits and price.”

Those in the individual and small-employer markets may shop on the new health insurance exchanges, which opened last week. Individuals can choose from 29 plans offered by three companies: Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, AmeriHealth New Jersey and Health Republic Insurance of New Jersey. Federal subsidies may help pay for a portion of premiums.

Insurance companies such as Aetna are still offering plans but not on the exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act.

ALthough the incident is small by comparison to the great wrongs, the big aspect about it is that local tv covered it today:
Runner fined $100 at Valley Forge amid shutdown
The Associated Press Posted: Monday, October 7, 2013, 6:54 PM
VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (AP) – A marathoner says he was fined $100 for running in Valley Forge National Historical Park during the government shutdown.
John Bell, 56, said he parked his car on Sunday in a remote parking lot, not one blocked by a barrier. Bell, of Chadds Ford, said two rangers were waiting with their car lights flashing when he returned.
Bell said he plans to fight the ticket in federal court. He said he saw many other runners and bikers in the park.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20131007_ap_ada498dd2aa5469ea65ac53982c2f0a0.html#8qh3pcGfy4CjImpT.99

Postal Service to Destroy Michelle O. ‘Just Move’ Stamp Series Over Safety Concerns

According to Linn’s Stamp News, the US Postal Service has now been forced to destroy the entire run of stamps based on Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative.
That’s because three of the stamps showed children doing unsafe activities: one showed a child jumping cannonball-style into water; a second showed a child skateboarding without kneepads; a third showed a child doing a headstand without a helmet.

The President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition had not approved the stamps, but were only made aware of the problem after Nagisa Manabe, USPS marketing chief, asked Michelle Obama to take part in the ceremony inaugurating the initiative.

John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, and John Cornyn will ensure that Obamacare is fully funded and give the American public no delay like businesses have.

In doing so, they will sow the seeds of a real third party movement that will fully divide the Republican Party.
_____________

oh boy, right again. You could almost see it coming couldn’t you, like one of Obama’s lame “jokes”. By passing a continuing resolution on the debt, Boehner is giving up valuable leverage, perhaps the most valuable weapon in the fight.

I also think Limbaugh is correct when he said this whole charade is to destroy the Tea Party, the only political entity that even attempts to represent the will of the people anymore. The TP is despised as much by the establishment GOP as by the Dems.

I hope you are right that the plan will backfire and a third party results.

yes free i know what you mean…last year’s AHS/Asylum freaked me out but I was hooked…this year’s story is said to be not as scary and with abit more ironic comedy (I missed the first season)…the acting and cast are great and the way they shoot the scenes is very interesting…always a jolting surprise coming…

oh boy, right again. You could almost see it coming couldn’t you, like one of Obama’s lame “jokes”. By passing a continuing resolution on the debt, Boehner is giving up valuable leverage, perhaps the most valuable weapon in the fight.

I also think Limbaugh is correct when he said this whole charade is to destroy the Tea Party, the only political entity that even attempts to represent the will of the people anymore. The TP is despised as much by the establishment GOP as by the Dems.

I hope you are right that the plan will backfire and a third party results.
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The first thing that will happen is the base will not turn out in 2014. Therefore, the Republicans will lose the house. The second thing that will happen is the base will not turn out in 2016. Therefore, the Republicans will lose the presidency. The third thing that will happen is between 2014 and 2020 the conservatives seeing that the Republican Party is their enemy and is a congenital loser, will break away from the Republican Party. The planning for this is already underway. Meanwhile, the entitlement state will grow, and will suck the marrow out of the bones of the middle class. And they will join the underclass and the demands of the entitlement class will overwhelm the wealthy. Hell, this is the pattern of history. Why should this country be any different. Soros and his crowd want this nation to collapse, so they can construct the new global order. But they may not be a part of it that they think they will. The counterforces for this are China and Russia. Soros and his ilk will never get in that country. And fifty years from now China, not these elites, will be the dominant economic and military power in the world. Soros, Buffett and their ilk do not understand this yet. But they will.

About Lonegan’s quirks. Some annoy me, but others are admirable. For one thing, while most campaigners use the cloudy “Monday evening” date format on snail mail, he uses real dates.
Within his online info gathering page for contributions, there is an obvious and generous comment box, and it is checked. When I gave a much smaller amount and identified it as my last due to my dissatisfaction with …. within a few days Lonegan himself called my home. That call went to voice mail and he spoke at some length. Not being a phone person, I did not return his call. But these small personal habits speak well of him. Probably they will not be duly noted where it will really help him. But I tried.

He is currently running a negative ad on tv but it is over nearly as soon as it begins, is in full color, and ends with a pleasant look on his face. It might work.
Bloomberg’s ads for Booker have started. The are longer, positive, and mostly graphics, quotes of that man’s accomplishments.

Also, in one of my more irrational decisions, yesterday I overnighted a postcard to Boehner at his West Chester OH office. USPS says it will be delivered by noon. I will check. $20 and it will likely be hauled off to a place to be checked for toxins. And one of his staff members will have it in hand to open a month from now. Eh.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. We do deserve better. By the way, when the hypocritical Obama delivered those remarks, the debt ceiling was being raised to $8.965 trillion. Today, after five years of his trillion-dollar annual deficits, the debt ceiling stands at $16.7 trillion. And that’s not high enough for the big spenders in his administration. Talk about putting more burdens “onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.”

But the battle over raising the debt ceiling is just one area where we are being deluged with lies. Another is Obamacare. Remember all those Presidential promises that the measure would lower premiums for most Americans — and that if you liked your present health insurance, you could keep it? Turns out (surprise, surprise) neither one of these Presidential promises is true.

Now that the program has officially been launched, it’s turning out to be even more of a disaster than its worst critics predicted. The program’s apologists claimed that the system suffered repeated and near-total crashes on its Oct. 1 launch day because of its popularity. “[I]t’s sort of a great problem to have,” gloated Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Hardly.

The Covered California website claimed that it got more than 5 million hits on Oct. 1. Turns out that the number was inflated by more than 4 million; the actual count was 645,000.

And how many of those folks actually signed up for the government-mandated health insurance? Oops, supposedly the administrators won’t be able to get that information to us for a few more weeks.

Obamacare’s main signup engine attracted just 6,200 new customers on its launch day and 51,000 after the first week
At the same rate, the 6-month open enrollment period would sign up just 2 million Americans, including 14 states and D.C., which have their own insurance exchanges
The Congressional Budget Office says Obamacare needs at least 7 million customers to stay afloat financially
Numerous Obama administration officials have denied seeing any enrollment figures at all

Bill Clinton Blog posted a link to Bill’s speech on interconnectedness at Omega Institute. Of course I love me some Big Dawg, so I’m hardly objective, but I thought it was great. Bill’s philosophical side became increasingly apparent after the 2000 election, as he frequently condemned the “politics of personal destruction”, referencing the personal slams and insults aimed at Bush. Of course he had experienced the same during the Monica scandal and well beyond, from hell hounds like Newt and pals who were determined destroy anything – positive or negative – associated with the name Clinton. I was impressed by Bill’s philosophy which I thought at the time, seemed genuine. I’m sure he, like all of us, struggles with the urge to fight down and dirty – no holds barred – but apparently, he has put quite a bit of thought into more positive ways of engaging in political battles – and life, in general. When it comes to politics, I can’t say the high road is one I like to travel, but it does seem like the best route.

Few politicians would be comfortable speaking about the need for an evolution of consciousness, but Bill Clinton is no ordinary politician. Last Friday, former President Bill Clinton spoke at the “Where Do We Go From Here?” conference at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, New York. While his speech was not open to the press or public, a video was temporarily available on the Omega website and I took some notes on some of the most interesting and inspiring things Clinton had to say.
Bill Clinton on staying positive:

“It’s okay to complain about things, but fundamentally it doesn’t change anything and it is disempowering. One of the things that you learn from living and living long enough is that the good times come and go and you have to keep realizing that every new day gives you some opportunity to make something good happen. And you gotta take it.”

On trend lines versus headlines:

“I often tell students that It is very important in life to be able to distinguish between the headlines and the trend lines. If the trend lines are bad, all the happy headlines in the world won’t make things come out well. And if the trend lines are not as bad as the headlines, you should wake up every morning full of optimism and be content with the trend lines until the headlines catch up.”

On interdependence:

“The nature of the modern world is its interdependence. both people with each other across vast swaths of land and around the corner and across oceans and people with the Earth. But interdependence can be good or bad or both. Human nature being what it is, it’s usually both. All interdependence means is that divorce is not an option. Divorce may be an option for two people, but you’ll still be interdependent.”
On inequality:

“There are some huge obstacles in the way of creating that kind of world we need. First is rampant inequality, which has gotten worse, both because of forces beyond our control and because of political decisions made in individual countries.

So anybody that wants to build a world that is more harmonious than the one we’re living in and give people the security to tackle things like climate change, even the emotional space to think about it, has got to deal with these inequality issues.”

On how elephant poaching and the illegal ivory trade funds terrorism:

“And there are armed groups that make a living off of instability. If you look at this horrible killing in the mall in Kenya, by Al-Shabaab, it’s an example of how all of these things are out of balance. They were allegedly retaliating against Kenyans for going into Southern Somalia to try and keep Al-Shabaab from infiltrating Kenya. And there is a good chance, relative to our interdependence, that the operation which probably didn’t cost more than a $100,000 or $150,000 dollars was funded by the illegal trade in ivory, which if it continues at the current rate will mean virtually all the elephants in Africa will disappear in the next twenty years. This is one reason Hillary and Chelsea are working so hard on that is that. Yes, it’s a resource conservation issue. Yes, elephants are highly intelligent and are wonderful animals and deserve to inhabit the Earth. And yes, it’s necessary for the continuation of tourism in a lot of places, but their murder is financing a great deal of illicit activity in the world today. And we know that Al-Shabaab, in some years, gets as much as 40% of its income from illegal ivory sales.”

NOTE: For more on this, see my post on how Al-Shabaab is funded by ivory trade.

On the evolution of consciousness:

“Our consciousness, particular when under the kind of economic pressure we’ve been under, is still not where it needs to be to develop the solutions that are most-likely to work. What do I mean by that? If you want a future of shared responsibilities, shared opportunities and shared sense of community, you have to believe certain things. You have to believe that creative cooperation is better than constant conflict. You have to believe that we’re all in this together. You have to believe that are differences are interesting, they make life more interesting. They are exciting, but our common humanity matters more. You have to be willing to look at science and let your eyes overcome your ideology.

On the value of government-funded science research:

I spent $3 billion dollars of your money to sequence the human genome and it was worth every penny of it. And we have already received, by the way, somewhere on the order of $180 billion of economic benefit from it. The sequencing now at St. Jude’s Childrens Hospital, the largest childrens cancer center in the country, costs about $5,000, it’ll be $1,000 within 18 months, $500 soon after that.

On our shared humanity:

“By far the most important finding [from the genome sequencing project] for all of us mortals is that every difference you can see in this crowd, skin color, body shape, eye color, everything you can see that is not age-related, is lodged in a half of one percent of our genome. Otherwise we are all 99.5% identical. And we all spend 99.5% of our time, worrying about that half a percent that’s different. Right?

Our brains are programmed to box us. If we have no ability to create boxes, man, woman, boy girl old young, wide narrow long short, we wouldn’t be able to function, but if we can’t think out of our boxes than we are doomed to whatever path we’re on when our growth stops. So, the great trick of the modern world is going to be to get a critical mass of people who can think rationally within all the boxes that we need and find more of them and smaller and smaller ones, but also can imagine what we have to do to come to the simple conclusion, confirmed now by science, that what we have in common is more interesting than our differences.”

On a positive vision for the future:

“Whether we like it or not, we’ll be sharing the future. The only question is whether we’ll be sharing opportunities and responsibilities or chaos and destruction. And whether we like it or not, the Earth we live on must be a partner in the future we share.”

Doswell, Va. – Zeeda Andrews of Truckers for the Constitution just gave press a list of five demands that the group plans to deliver to Representative Louie Gohmert (R., Texas). The document begins by suggesting that “Barry Soetoro, aka Barack Obama” is ineligible to be president because “his documents” are “forgeries”. Here’s that paragraph:

From 2003 to 2008, several members of Congress introduced legislation, attempting to change Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution on eight separate occasions to make it possible for Barack Obama to meet the eligibility requirements for the office of president. Of which, a legal investigation has proven that his documents provided are forgeries, which is a felony offense.

Then came a sudden change that could help break the political impasse causing a partial government shutdown and the looming threat of a further crisis when the nation bumps up against its self-imposed borrowing limit.

As first reported by CNN’s Dana Bash and Deirdre Walsh, an exchange between GOP Rep. Paul Ryan and President Barack Obama seemed to clear the air, with each side acknowledging the validity of the other.

Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, conceded his side wouldn’t get all it wanted, while Obama said, tell me what you need to make something happen, Bash and Walsh reported after the Thursday night meeting.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for working to eliminate the scourge that has haunted generations from World War I to the battlefields of Syria.

The OPCW was formed in 1997 to enforce the Chemical Weapons Convention, the first international treaty to outlaw an entire class of weapons. Based in The Hague, Netherlands, it has largely worked out of the limelight until this year, when the United Nations called on its expertise to help investigate alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

“The conventions and the work of the OPCW have defined the use of chemical weapons as a taboo under international law,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in Oslo. “Recent events in Syria, where chemical weapons have again been put to use, have underlined the need to enhance the efforts to do away with such weapons.”

The establishment Republicans have become so detached from their base that they believe they can win elections without them. That is a curious position, one might even say a suicidal one. But that is the path they are heading down. They have chosen Wall Street over Main Street, so people like Bohener and McConnell can hang out in Palm Springs and play the top 100 golf course in the world.

So what is their plan moving forward–these establishment Republicans? To run that grotesque slob Christie? Will the base rally around that thug? A man who kisses Obama’s ass, and cuts the throats of working people. Well, they say, a lot will change, between now and 2016. Probably true. But given their attachment to Wall Street it is highly unlikely that they will be seen as champions of the American People, and therefore, worth rally around.

A party that excels in losing every battle presents a strong argument for just staying home. I realize you have these defenders of the establishment like those at PJ Media, who say the problem is conservatives, more specifically Cruz. Really? Do they really fucking believe that. Do they believe that the Republican Party is winning?

To answer that question, lets review the record. The only time they won was in 2010 and they won because they promised to fight against Obamacare. The all promised to defund it–go back and look at what they said then, and look at what they are saying now. Now, you get them robotically repeating administration talking points like we tried, we lost, and under the rules of our system we must now support the program. Put the shoe on the other foot for a second. Since when did that fucking Obama show any regard for the Constitution or settled law? The answer is short and sweet: Never.

Memorandum to Alfred Hitchcock impersonator Karl Rove and his ilk would be this: you can collect all the money you want from the people who are dumb enough to support a party of losers who refuse to fight . . . but where will you find the people to vote for you.

Frankly, I begin to suspect that the game of establishment Republicans is more about collecting money than winning elections. It is hard to know what they will do with themselves however when they cannot collect money either, because donors are business people and business people are loathe to protect failing business ventures.

Internecine battles like this tend to be messy. When the federal government successfully prosecuted the bosses of the five New York families, i.e. Salerno (Genovese), Corallo (Lucchese), Castellano (Gambino), Messina (Bonanno) and Persico (Columbo), it left a power vaccum. Suddenly, street soldiers were running these families, and factional fighting ensued, and a trail of bodies, from Sparks Steak House in Manhattan to the Burrough of Queens. The New York papers loved it, but the thing that amazed me was how as the walls closed in internecine conflict consumed everything else, and the Federal Government naturally took advantage of this. And so it is here.

That is my take. Here is what Ericson has to say. A day ago he was highly despondent. Now he is merely . . . despondent.
—————————————
The Fight Remains About Obamacare

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | October 11th, 2013 at 04:30 AM | 71

I stepped out last night, away from politics, to be the celebrity chef at a cooking school. It was refreshing to tune out the political world.

But when I checked into my hotel after eleven last night, there was a backlog of weepy, crying emails from people ready to surrender.

Why?

Because the GOP has gone from being not liked to being not liked? Because this Congress has gone from being the worst ever to the worst ever?

Surrender should not be an option. This fight has been and remains about Obamacare. A Republican Party fretting over polling should consider that polling will rebound in their direction with a victory. The GOP should also consider that some of the negatives in the polls are from their own side angry at their reluctance to actually fight the good fight.

Republican leaders who have never wanted this fight have tried at all costs to avoid fighting it. They have tried to wrap the continuing resolution into the debt ceiling then into a grand bargain.

Conservatives should keep the fight squarely on Obamacare.

What is most eye opening is that the Republican leaders have grown so detatched from their base that they will willingly push a medical device tax repeal on behalf of K Street lobbyists while ignoring the very people who actually vote for them.

Republicans reeling from polls should consider what the reaction of their base will be if they have gone this far and surrender with nothing — or with only a sop to special interests on K Street.

The path forward is simple. Keep the debt ceiling and continuing resolution separate. Raise the former and refuse movement on the latter without a commitment to delay Obamacare. If employers get a delay, individuals should get a delay and no fine. The website does not even work. This case can be effectively prosecuted before the public.

The GOP should have this fight and make this case. It is sellable. The only problem is the GOP leadership does not want to sell it. They’d rather surrender and shift blame to conservatives.

Speaker Boehner has previously said he would stop doing back room deals with the White House. He should do as he said. He should keep the government closed until Democrats agree to delay Obamacare

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer believes that during the partial government shutdown, the bureaucracy in Washington demonstrated its willingness to punish citizens when it does not get its way.

“I think there are two issues here,” Krauthammer said on Wednesday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel. “One, was it a political act? I tend to think that some of these interpretations, clearly, people seem to be always erring on the side of being rough and tough and irrational like the cordoning off of the World War II Memorial, which is open-air, and where it takes more park rangers to cordon it off than it would to accompany the aging veterans on to the site. I think there’s an element — and we saw it in the sequestration. This isn’t the first time.”

Arlington graves stripped of personal mementos in controversial clean-up that has outraged fallen service members’ grieving families
The new policy at the Virginia cemetery bans pictures and small tributes

The carefully-chosen mementos that cover graves in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery offer a deeply personal glimpse into the lives of grieving military families.

These reminders have now been scrubbed away following a new policy which has banned family and friends from placing tributes on the graves.

Headstones have been stripped of photos, drawings and poignant notes, in particular those in Section 60, home to the graves of more than 800 service members killed while doing their duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An Arlington spokesman said they were responding to complaints that the cemetery was looking too disorderly, and said the section needed to follow the same rules as the rest of the site.

What the fuck does that mean? It means that at one time, your raw score mattered. Whereas today, it does not in most golf tournaments. Today, outside USGA events, you get to invent a handicap, and reduce your net score accordingly. In the process, golf has become a low net game. In a perfect market, you would have a bell shaped curve determined by some combination of ability and luck. Today, the game is figures don’t lie, but liars figure.

Low net is the essence of many things. Affirmative action, disability law, get yourself a good lawyer, or in the case of politics, a good consultant, and milk the system. Hell, it even applies to things like club design. In the old days great players designed the golf clubs, whereas today, they are invented by engineers. Drivers used to have small clubheads and today they have club heads the size of danish ham–which a sweet spot that you cannot miss, which favors golfers with little talent.

Life itself has become a low net game. That is the unstated premise of the welfare state we are becoming. Talent, hard work etc. are no longer valued.

Heavy volumes of traffic were reported on the Beltway during Friday morning’s commute because of the rain, police authorities said, but there were no major incidents related to a protest by about 30 tractor-trailers and pickups against what organizers describe as excessive government intrusion.

Maryland and Virginia police officials said at mid-morning that the truck protesters appeared to have broken up into smaller groups and were traveling at the same speed as the rest of traffic along the Beltway.

How sweet it is to watch Mark Levin decapitate a French Republican masquerading as a Tea Party candidate. This joker claims that he ran to defund Obamacare, then failed to show up on the senate floor when it was being debated, and attacked those Republicans who held the line. When Levin lays into him, he gets very excited and claims he did not come on the program to be cross examined. If he wanted a soft ball interview he should have gone to see that limey proctological specimen at CNN–Peeeerss.

In U.S., Perceived Need for Third Party Reaches New High
Twenty-six percent believe Democratic and Republican parties do adequate job

PRINCETON, NJ — Amid the government shutdown, 60% of Americans say the Democratic and Republicans parties do such a poor job of representing the American people that a third major party is needed. That is the highest Gallup has measured in the 10-year history of this question. A new low of 26% believe the two major parties adequately represent Americans.

Another nation heard from. A moment ago, friends told me that Howard–which I take to mean Howard Schultz head of Starbucks was on CNBC saying that he had spoken to a number of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and “they” agree that “they” are not sticking up for working people in this country.

With over 20% effective unemployment, the proposition is hard to argue with, assuming we can come to a mutually agreeable definition of who they is, and if we believe that these corporate executives are part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. Since small businesses are the major job creators and because Obama has done everything to tank them, one can only wonder whether Howard is more concerned for himself than he is for the American People. Given some of the high handed things he has done around this town, you begin to wonder.

Personally, I like Howard even though I have never met him. He was at the Hillary fundraiser in October 2007 but I never made it over to his table so he could ask me who the fuck are you. I have met his product, Starbucks coffee, and I am one of their 10 million loyal customers/addicts who seek them out for a caffine fix every day.

If what Howard is saying, on behalf of those stock option addled CEOs is that the conservative republicans are the problem here, then fuck him. If what he is saying that the problem is the beltway elites vs. the American People. Unfortunately, I doubt very seriously that is what he is saying. But he should be. And the question he should be asking himself if he had eyes to see is why the country is suffering while Washington has become what Tom Brokaw called the New Versaille, and we are up to our eyeballs in debt to China.

Have you seen Chuck around? Where is he? Where? What interview has he done? Where is he? Where is this man? The Department of Defense Secretary — where is he? This guy should be fired immediately. He has no right to be there. He’s lost all credibility with the military. Get out of here. You see, this is what drives me crazy. They’re not leaders. These aren’t leaders. Come on.
HUME: Bill, keep in mind what they may believe their leader, President Obama, is trying to accomplish in this shutdown. We’ve seen all this monkeyshine with the National Park Service and the closing of open-air monuments and things that are plainly unnecessary designed to make the government shutdown hit as hard a

wbboei
October 11, 2013 at 2:02 pm
What is the CEO of Starbuck’s nattering about? It is finaly sinking in that a enormous amount of disposable income is going to be sucked up into health insurance premiums without a commensurate increase in income. Any voluntary purchase is going to be cut including fancy coffee due to increase of other expenses specifically related to health insurance (premiums, co-pays, and deductables) and new penalty taxes. I do not think these guys thought it would be this bad. More fool them.

Scott Pruitt, the attorney general of Oklahoma, acting on the research of Jonathan H. Adler and Michael F. Cannon published in the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, has brought a new lawsuit, on behalf of the state, against ObamaCare.

Unlike the suit brought by 26 state attorneys general, this lawsuit does not make a constitutional objection to the Affordable Care Act. Instead, it uses the language of the law to challenge the elaborate system of subsidies, tax credits and individual or employer mandates and fines the act has spawned.

Mormaer
October 11, 2013 at 3:34 pm
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You are correct. I read Howard’s article. Like I say, I like him. Even though I do not know him. He has done these publicity stunts before. They are good for a headline, and maybe a little extra business. As in hey, lets stop in Starbucks and buy one of those camel sugar filled skinny with loads of whip cream ten shots of caffeine and after all that shameless self indulgence sign Howards petition telling those mean Republicans to stop belly aching about losing our constitution, straighten up and fly right and do whatever Obama wants them to do. I really like Corker. If Obama told him to bend over he would say how low and thank you may I please have another. Collins meanwhile bears a striking resemblance to WC Fields with a mop on his/her head. She walked out of that meeting grinning like a possum eating shit of out of a hairbrush. Nothing good will come of that. Other than a petition.

House Republicans have sent the White House a revised proposal to lift the debt ceiling for six weeks, as well as reopen government through December 15th, which was their original spending proposal before the partial shutdown. The revised GOP plan reflects the demands Obama made in a meeting with House GOP Leaders on Thursday. It also reflects the unwillingness of the DC GOP to face a fiscal showdown with Democrats.

Aside from reopening the government and agreeing to raise America’s debt over the current $16.7 trillion limit, the Republicans made several other concession to President Obama and the Democrats. One such example is that Obamacare would receive funding. The Republicans would get to take out a portion of the president’s signature legislation, but the law would substantially remain intact. The AP reports:

I called my insurance company today to see how much my rates will go up. The old rate for me was $470/month and the new rate will be $600. By my math that is a 28% increase. Also, the deductible will increase from $3500 to $5000. The reason for this is they have been forced to cover things which they did not cover before, which I do not need myself. Also, they are required to cover pre-existing conditions. Finally, whereas in the past, they could design an insurance program acceptable to the state, now they must design one that meets the requirements of the federal government, some of which reflect a bia in favor of Obama bundlers. My guess is that the rates for 2015 will effectively double–in other words, we will be looking at $1000 per month. The reason I say that is because Obama is sure that young people will buy insurance they do not want when the reverse is true. They will pay the penalty instead, and that means the insurance companies will not be able to spread the additional risk over as broad a base of premium payers as they assumed, and those chickens will come home to roost on the shoulders of those who do buy insurance. Yes, that will be a huge problem, insurance most middle class people cannot afford. Furthermore, if it comes down to a choice between putting bread on the table or buying a heath insurance policy with a $5000 deductible the choice becomes obvious. But the one thing we now know for sure is that the RINO will never protect the American People, therefore the American People are fools to go on electing RINOs.

Asked to give a breakdown of the exchange between Cruz and Obama, White House press secretary Jay Carney simply responded: “No.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/ted-cruz-confronts-barack-obama-government-shutdown-98197.html#ixzz2hSanveet
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That can only mean one thing: Obama got his ass handed to him by Cruz. And the RINO hid under the conference table–which is all that the RINO is good for. . . While RINO consultants blame the shutdown for the possible extinction of the Party. It is going extinct but the root cause is not that they fight, but that they do not fight–except with those in their own party who want the party to stand up for the American People, and find zero support for that proposition in the ranks of the RINOs. McCain says we fought the good fight therefore we must be good losers. Ryan says we must never give up on opposing Obama care. Question for you Paul: what good does it do when you fight? It merely defers you inevitable surrender. The base needs to leave these people to their delusions. The quicker we can get a credible third party going, which is not under the control of Washington, the safer the American People will be.

Conservatives will bid a not so found farewell to the Washinton centered RINO dominated Republican Party which preaches democracy and practices cowardice and cronyism. And to Karl Rove, as the estimable Dolly Levi put it: on those cold wintery nights Turd Blossom, you can snuggle up to your cash register. It may be lumpy but it rings.

Primary RINOS in the primary. If we lose, then stay home in the general election. They have told us that they do not need to American People and will govern as they see fit. If they don’t need us now, then surely they do not need us in the general election either. They will lose.
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Get Out Your Checkbook NOW

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | October 11th, 2013 at 05:36 PM | 68

Republican leaders in Washington, DC are signaling they will cave on the fight against Obamacare.

Heck, they are signaling they are caving on everything.

Isn’t it interesting that when Ted Cruz and Jim DeMint were touring America to fight against Obamacare, the popularity of the GOP was going up and the popularity of Obamacare was going down.

But now that John Boehner and the Orange Man Group of Capitol Hill are the faces of the GOP, Obamacare’s popularity is going back up and the GOP’s popularity is going back down.

GOP Leaders, by caving, are signaling they want us to primary them.

I am happy to help.

I have just given money to Heritage Action for America.

I have just given money to Senate Conservatives Fund.

These two groups will be at the forefront of the fight.

I am also giving money to Eric Gurr. He has decided to primary Speaker John Boehner in Ohio.

I am also giving money to Matt Bevin. He is the primary challenger to Mitch McConnell.

“…. Rates… $470 to $600 or 28% increase. Also, the deductible will increase from $3500 to $5000….”

I have health insurance of a different kind and have no way of judging if your premiums are high because they are pegged to one’s income in France (about 11% of income up to an income of about $5000 per month, and a flat withholding of €500 per month beyond that level). Please comment.

Also, there are no deductibles in the French system, so I don’t know how deductibles work. I know that, in car insurance or fire insurance, for example, the deductible can be either per claim or per annum. How do your deductibles apply? If your $3500 deductible is per claim, then you are getting practically no coverage at all because you will never be reimbursed for flu treatment, minor surgery, a checkup or even a C-scan. It seems to me that you will only be covered for serious, long-term illness, in which case you will still have to shell out $3500.

And also, in which case, I can only say that for-profit American medicine sucks big time with or without Obamacare.

….Obamacare would receive funding. The Republicans would get to take out a portion of the president’s signature legislation, but the law would substantially remain intact.

Let’s remember that the funding of Obamacare is essentially the subsidies paid to low-income healthcare insurance subscribers. AFAIK, there’s nothing else in the ACA that calls for funding.

This is why, from the outset of Cruz’ struggle, I have not been on his side. Cruz has said that he thinks “every word” of the ACA should be repealed, which is an extremist attitude because there is a lot of stuff that should not be open to question in the ACA, such as outlawing insurance companies’ refusal to take parties with pre-conditions.

But Cruz says he is settling for de-funding in the meantime, i.e., simply refusing to subsidize low-income subscribers. So, if Cruz had his way, the poor would still be forced to take out health insurance, or face a penalty, but the government would give them no financial support. That’s just plain inhumane. So, I disagree that the Repubs are bending over again by funding Obamacare. They’re doing the right thing.

“Mrs Clinton has been awarded the Chatham House Prize in recognition of her contribution to international diplomacy as US Secretary of State and her work on behalf of gender equality and opportunities for women and girls.”

PRINCETON, NJ — Amid the government shutdown, 60% of Americans say the Democratic and Republicans parties do such a poor job of representing the American people that a third major party is needed. That is the highest Gallup has measured in the 10-year history of this question. A new low of 26% believe the two major parties adequately represent Americans.

To my knowledge, the US is the only country in the world with two political parties only. Communist countries have a single party and parliamentary democracies have at least five parties.

Mind you, the US had a one-party system from 2001 to 2006, with the Republicans ruling alone and ignoring the Democrats; and again in 2009 to 2010 with the Democrats ignoring the Republicans. Since 2012, there has been zero-party rule, with O overruling a hobbled Congress and making his own laws by executive order.

To my mind, there is no question that the US needs more than two parties; but the deeper question for me is, why is this not already the case? Do the existing parties have some sort of lockdown on the political process that prevents the creation of any other parties? Why is the Tea Party considered to be the right wing of the Republican Party, and not a party in its own right?

In New York, there are the Liberal Party and the Independence Party, but I don’t think they field their own candidates. I think they just throw their support one way or the other.

In sum, what does it take to start a new party? A burning issue, like slavery, which brought the Republican Party into power? In that case, if Obamacare is the hottest issue since slavery, then the Tea Party should be a party in its own right.

“I have a huge critique of the current government there (in Cuba) because it’s undemocratic,” snapped de Bill de Blasio to a Cuban–American radio interviewer two weeks ago. “I also think it’s well known that there’s some good things that happened ­ for example, in health care.”

Does it occur to people nowadays that Stalinist regimes might lie? For a guy who presumes to run New York Bill de Blasio sure seems bereft of one of natives’ most celebrated attributes: their “street smarts.”

Who told de Blasio that Castro’s totalitarian fiefdom has good healthcare? Maybe he saw it on CNN?

Indeed a CNN “Special Report” on Cuba’s healthcare gushed about the island nation’s “impressive health statistics.” The show featured clips from Michael Moore’s Sicko as CNN’s Morgan Neill, on location in a Potemkin Havana hospital, reported live. “Cuba’s infant mortality rates are the lowest in the hemisphere,” he recited from the regime-issued talking points, “in line with those of Canada! Cuba can boast about health care, a system that leads the way in Latin America.”

Besides plugging Moore’s Sicko, CNN’s “Special Report” also featured “medical expert,” Gail Reed, introduced on screen as “someone who’s lived and worked in Cuba for decades.” “They (the Cubans) concentrate on prevention,” she explained to CNN viewers. “When I first came to Cuba in the ’70s, I was very impressed with their efforts in building a new kind of society,” Reed explained.

jeswezey
October 12, 2013 at 4:37 am
Let’s remember that the funding of Obamacare is essentially the subsidies paid to low-income healthcare insurance subscribers. AFAIK, there’s nothing else in the ACA that calls for funding.

Obamacare is the most regressive funding system I have ever seen for anything that is described as a progressive “need”. I think that it has nothing to do with “healthcare” or access to it.It is a system of wealth transfer. It makes everything about obtaining healthcare services much more expensive. Massive deductibles and breathtaking increases in premiums disproportionately hit the working poor hardest. They will get less healthcare because they cannot pay the ticket to get admission because of the huge deductibles even if they manage to scrape up the premiums. Wellness programs, expensive insurance for over 22 but under 26 year olds who are stymied by the shrinking job market, access of the chronically ill to insurance markets at breathtaking expense (replacing state programs), lift of lifetime caps while somewhat beneficial come at an enormous cost to everyone else which they did not agree to. One of the goals of Obamacare was to permit cancellation of existing policies and dissolve group policies to circumvent state insurance rules to replace current policies with much more expensive policies. The cost is stratospheric and is just now beginning to be seem.

While not denying anything of what you say, I don’t see how de-funding Obamacare is going to do away with any of this downside either. Will de-funding it reduce the deductibles, for example? Will it make healthcare less expensive for anyone?

Everything you mention takes requires no federal funds at all. My point was that all de-funding will do is to de-subsidize the 45 million people who are currently not covered but are forced to buy coverage.

I’m not trying to make the case for Obamacare, here. I suppose all the things you mentioned are true, but that only means the ACA has to be revamped or replaced, not de-funded.

GOTV Rally with Steve Lonegan, Sarah Palin and Mark Levin
Saturday October 12, 2013 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM
New Egypt Speedway
720 Pinehurst Road New Egypt, NJ 08533
————–
Since OFA tormented Cruz, I’m hoping especially they will not show up here. But with Bama’s BFF as an opponent it’s more likely they will.

I thought it was all settled on The Hill.
Collapse: Shutdown talks break down on Capitol Hill
…House Republicans and the White House had both said they were making progress over the previous two days, saying that they had cleared the air and that the GOP was working to see if it could find an offer Mr. Obama could accept.
But by Saturday morning Republicans were accusing the White House of negotiating in bad faith, and the Senate was speeding toward a vote that appeared destined to harden both sides’ positions.
The one proposal that does appear to have some legs is from Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, which would end both the shutdown, now in its 12th day, and would grant a short-term debt increase, while repealing a despised Obamacare tax and granting the administration flexibility in administering the budget sequesters….
On the shutdown, Democrats used parliamentary tactics to block a vote in the House on funding Indian and Native Alaskan health and education programs, as yet another of the piecemeal funding bills the GOP is trying to pass.
Instead, House Democrats launched a petition drive to try to force Republicans to put the Senate’s complete government funding bill, including Obamacare, on the chamber floor for a vote. House Speaker John A. Boehner has said there aren’t enough votes to pass that bill, but he has refused Democrats’ request to bring the bill for a vote and prove one way or the other.http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/12/collapse-shutdown-talks-break-down-capitol-hill/

Speaker John Boehner told House Republicans Saturday morning that his efforts to strike a deal with President Barack Obama are at a standstill.

There is no agreement, Boehner said in a room in the Capitol Saturday, and there are no negotiations between House Republicans and the White House, since Obama rejected the speaker’s effort to lift the debt ceiling for six weeks and reopen government while setting up a budget negotiating process.

Pub 10/10/13
Sebelius and Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney were at an enrollment and education event on Thursday at Heinz Field to promote Healthcare.gov, but people who showed up encountered problems in signing up for coverage on the website. ..

There aren’t any parts of the HellCare bill that I think should stand. Money is so the insurance companies and big Pharma can profit even more than they do in America right now, not to pay for the coverage of the poor.

—-

Among other things, he says Dubya was all brawn and no brains and O is the opposite.

Gotta disagree, George was a nitwit and sent the troups in to ‘win’ the war that his daddy backed away from, and Barry is neither intelligent nor does he have brawn. Even when Osama was being trapped and killed by our Seals, he didn’t care to watch the whole encounter with the rest of his cabinet, he got borded and when and played Spades upstairs with Reggie Love, Valarie and a couple more of his staff.

Open letter to Hillary from a 5th grade teacher who is an avowed deeply disappointed Obot.

I read Mr. Karrer letter to Hillary (good catch jes) and on one hand I say to him “TOLD YOU SO, YOU ASS!!!!!” What was strategic about voting for bumbles? What in his history had he done to give you the confidence that he knew what he was talking about? Who had he dealt with in his political past tat would suggest that he understood education issues in the United States? In her quest to advance the cause of women and girls, Hillary has always acknowledged and pursued the educational aspect of both quality and advancement. In the debates (I think it was Ohio) when bumbles was asked about education, what kind of answer did he give?

On the other hand, it is terrible how bad his situation is in California. He is getting a front row seat in the demise of this nation as it starts with the generations in school. I am one of many educated outside the US that see NCLB as crap because of the numerous non-college options available to students in this country. I am curious to see which other countries have so many business and trade schools attached to career services that almost guarantee employment on completion that could be funded by financial aid in the form of SCHOOL LOANS that are repayable.

Now he asks that she run so that the US can be saved from the scourge of the Bush policies that didn’t/don’t work and bumbles policies that were never intended to work.

Georgia US House of Rep within the hour, posted this to FB:
Status Update
By Rob Woodall
Reports in the news today say that the President’s talks with the House have stalled. Don’t you believe it! The President’s talking continues (“I will not negotiate”); but the President’s listening has yet to begin. It appears from yesterday and today that the President believes that he can get what he wants from the Senate, so he is not even continuing the charade of working with the House.

The House continues to offer the President a simple and fair path forward: (1) offer the same Obamacare waivers to individuals and families that you’ve offered to big business and labor unions and (2) ensure that the President, his White House team, his agency heads and Congress are all pushed into Obamacare in the same way that so many American families are. In other words, apply the law equally to everyone, or don’t force it on anyone. The President has yet to sit down at any negotiating table to explain to America why such a request isn’t patently fair to everyone.

Please encourage your friends and family members to send encouraging words to their U.S. Senators this weekend and ask them to stand with us on this commonsense commitment to fairness under the law.

Jesw
I am definitely no expert, by any stretch of the imagination, but we do have an Independent party of a sorts in this country, but thanks to the Rs, Ds and media, anyone that runs as an independent doesn’t get the same ‘fair coverage’ by the media as the others do, also, the Independent candidates don’t have equal rights when it comes to the debates. The final debates are only between the two parties. The tea party folks are also from the Dem party, I went to many of their protests, but I would hope they account for some of the independents that are now PUMAs?

Andy McCarthy’s Excellent Piece on the RINO . . . McNutt, WC Fields Collins, cowering Cronyn, feckless Corker, Paul Ryan and all the other SURRENDER MONKEYS–and their wisdom which passeth all understanding:
————————————
Here is where we’re at: The Republican establishment — the guys who told us that for a trillion dollars and several thousand American casualties, we could build “Islamic democracies” that would be reliable U.S. allies in the War on Terror — say it is Ted Cruz who is “delusional” and the effort to stave off Obamacare that is “unattainable.”

These self-appointed sages are, of course, the same guys who told us the way to “stabilize” and “democratize” Libya was to help jihadists topple and kill the resident dictator — who, at the time, was a U.S. ally, providing intelligence about the jihadists using his eastern badlands as a springboard for the anti-American terror insurgency in Iraq. That’s probably worth remembering this week, during which some of our new “allies” abducted Libya’s president while others car-bombed Sweden’s consulate in Benghazi — site of the still unavenged terrorist massacre of American ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. officials 13 months ago.
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Not to worry, though. So successful do they figure the Libyan escapade was, GOP leaders are backing a reprise in Syria. It is there, we learn from a Human Rights Watch report issued this week, that our new “allies,” the al-Qaeda-rife “rebels,” executed a savage atrocity just two months ago. Sweeping into the coastal village of Latakia, the jihadists slaughtered 190 minority Alawites. As the New York Times details, “at least 67 of the dead appeared to have been shot or stabbed while unarmed or fleeing, including 48 women and 11 children.” More than 200 other civilians were captured and are still being held hostage.

So that’s going well.

And, you’ll be pleased to know, supporting the Syrian “rebels” is a high enough priority that it’s not part of the 17 percent of the federal government affected by the “shutdown.” America’s enemies are still receiving taxpayer-funded weapons, so that they can fight America’s other enemies, the Assad regime, to what Washington hopes will be a resounding victory. Er . . . check that — to what the administration hopes will be . . . a tie. The administration also let slip this week that it is arming our preferred jihadists so they can grind to a stalemate with Russia’s preferred jihadists — after all, we wouldn’t want to upset Iran’s ruling jihadists after they’ve just finally deigned to take, yes, a phone call from our pleading president after blowing him off in New York.

So support for the Syrian jihad remains unaffected by the shutdown, just like the Capitol Hill gym and Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” website. Obama did manage, however, to cut off death benefits for the families of American troops killed fighting for our country. Or at least our conniving Alinsky-in-chief thought he’d succeeded in cutting off the military death benefits — along with forcible closures of war-hero cemeteries, national monuments, private homes, and the ocean.

It turned out he’d miscalculated.

President I Will Not Negotiate ended up negotiating, and then quietly paying bereaved military families, because he discovered, to his astonishment, that the public would hold him, not Republicans, responsible for this unspeakable breach of faith. He’d thought he had that covered. After all, as the Republican establishment repeatedly tells us, Obama’s media always blame the GOP — thus making it “delusional” for the GOP to stand up and fight about anything.

The president was caught by the strategy devised by the delusional rubes who want to exercise Congress’s prerogative not to fund Obamacare — a purportedly unattainable goal, notwithstanding that the prerogative is rooted in the Constitution, in marked contrast to Obama’s own selective waivers of Obamacare, which are apparently rooted in . . . Obama.

See, in order to demonstrate beyond cavil that they were being reasonable, notwithstanding huge objections to the current unsustainable $3.6 trillion trough of federal spending, conservatives volunteered to fund everything the government does except Obamacare. The administration and its scribes shrieked, of course, but there is nothing illegal or unusual about withholding appropriations for federal programs. The government does it every year. Obama himself does it, not just in refusing to enforce the federal immigration laws (to take just one example) but in refusing to execute aspects of Obamacare that harm preferred corporations, union cronies, and Congress.

As expected, our petulant president refused the deal, directing his minions to forge ahead full-speed on his signature socialization of health care — never mind its unpopularity, unconstitutionality, and unreadiness for implementation. Meantime, he schemed to make the shutdown he was forcing as painful as possible. The mainstream-media division of the White House press operation would then, he figured, dutifully blame Republicans for the inevitable public outcry, and the GOP would instantly unfurl its ever-ready white flag.

But instead of waving the flag, House conservatives decided to wave a series of appropriations bills: bite-size portions of the mega-funding the president had already refused — a page out of the Left’s book, offering heartstring-tugging dollars for Head Start, disadvantaged women and children, cancer patients, emergency responders, national-parks operation, city services for Washington residents, etc. Obama thumbed his nose at these House overtures, banked on the press’s refusal to cover them, and went merrily about the business of scalding Republicans over a government shutdown that he was actually causing.

Except Obama let one bill get by: the House’s Pay Our Military Act (POMA). Why? Because Obama needs to hold Senate Democrats in lockstep “no” mode, but even they would not sign on to refusing to pay our troops in wartime. So the bill was passed — proving that, as the delusional Ted Cruz maintains, Democrats can be moved if unified Republicans make the pressure intense enough.

Obama signed POMA even though it cut sharply against his Maximum Pain strategy, but that was because he had his usual Plan B: ignore federal law. As Heritage’s Hans von Spakovsky explained on the Corner, administration lawyers issued tortuous guidance, twisting a statute that directs the payment of death benefits into a prohibition against the payment of death benefits. The idea was to add POMA to the community organizer’s propaganda campaign: to show that the Republicans would betray even our fallen heroes if that’s what it took to deny health care to millions of Americans.

But the president who slept through the Benghazi massacre once again forgot that our military is not just an agitprop. Our soldiers really do put their lives on the line, and lose them — as did the one marine and four soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan last weekend. That made it all too real. When bereaved families were suddenly denied death benefits by our government, there was no hiding the fact that the commander-in-chief had, yet again, abandoned those who’d made the ultimate patriotic sacrifice. What’s more, this dereliction was nothing more than crass political calculation — or, as it turned out, miscalculation.
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Public anger erupted and even the Associated Press courtiers were reduced to reporting a sharp drop in the president’s approval rating. Congressional Democrats scrambled and a superfluous, face-saving death-benefits law was enacted so the White House could try to pretend the president now had payment authority he’d previously lacked. Administration lawyers continue to mumble about how, though Obama felt really terrible about it, the perfectly clear POMA had been “too vague” to help military families in their time of need.

You know, there’s also a 1996 law on the federal books that makes it a felony to provide material support to terrorists. It’s not vague. In fact, it’s clear as a bell, according to the many federal courts that have applied it in sentencing scores of jihadist-abettors to hundreds of years in prison.

Don’t you find it strange, don’t you think the public at large would find it strange, that in a shutdown Obama has instigated in order to enforce the Obamacare law Americans don’t want, he so skews the rest of our law that his administration says we can fund al-Qaeda but we can’t fund the families of our war dead?

What a great argument that would be for Republicans . . . if only they were on the right side of it. But they’re not. So let’s roll over on Obamacare, get behind the Syrian jihadists, and make sure everyone knows Ted Cruz is the delusional one around here.

Nate Silver argues in his latest post that despite the media’s breathless, “game changer” coverage of the government shutdown, it’s not likely to change any games or even matter a whole lot to next year’s mid-terms.

Stupid little maggot . . . since he is a card carrying Bolshevik, he does not understand what is going on in the Republican Party–namely a civil war, which will upend the old guard, either through transition, or exodus:

Erick Erickson (Diary)

Republican leaders in Washington, DC are signaling they will cave on the fight against Obamacare.

Heck, they are signaling they are caving on everything.

Isn’t it interesting that when Ted Cruz and Jim DeMint were touring America to fight against Obamacare, the popularity of the GOP was going up and the popularity of Obamacare was going down.

But now that John Boehner and the Orange Man Group of Capitol Hill are the faces of the GOP, Obamacare’s popularity is going back up and the GOP’s popularity is going back down.

Here is more proof that the little maggot does not know what he is talking about, i.e. Rubio, Ryan, (Christy)–here today gone tomorrow rip. Lets put it this way: establishment republican may buy young Nate’s bullshit, because they want to believe it. But it is not reality. The Cruz/Lee initiative is the grand climeractic of a series of frustrations, put down and hypocrisies visited on the base by the party elites, of the Bush/Rove strain, and the surrender monkeys in Congress. Like I have said before: “But Tommmy aint no blooming fool—you bet that Tommy sees”. It the flat economy we have today, and as far ahead as the eye can see, it is a zero sum game. More for the Washington elites means less for the American People.
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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the GOP’s most recent vice presidential candidate, finished with a combined total of less than 10 percent of the vote in the Family Research Council (FRC) Values Voter Summit straw poll.

Rubio finished in fifth place with 5 percent of the vote, while Ryan finished in sixth place with 4 percent of the vote. The three biggest issues for the 762 straw poll voters were religious liberty, life, and Obamacare.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) finished overwhelmingly in first place, taking in 42 percent of the straw poll’s vote. Dr. Ben Carson, an ardent opponent of Obamacare, and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, a social conservative, finished tied for second place with 13 percent of the vote each.

Rubio has taken a beating among the GOP’s rank-and-file voters for his stance on immigration reform and continues to be unable to return to the top tier of conservative leaders. Ryan, who also supports comprehensive immigration reform, has recently become the face of the GOP establishment’s willingness to surrender to President Barack Obama on Obamacare and the ongoing fiscal fights over both the budget and the debt ceiling

I was at a dinner recently where I happened to be seated at a table with new acquaintances of the liberal political persuasion.

We went around the table introducing ourselves. As I said that I work for a “conservative website,” a man at the far end of the table made his displeasure known by booing. He wasn’t kidding.

These were professional, accomplished, senior members of the community. They had never met a conservative before. Their first reaction was hostile. No one chided the man who booed, or apologized on his behalf for his rudeness, or laughed to break the tension.

Instead, I began to face questions: you really support what Boehner is doing?

Yes, I replied. He’s doing the right thing by standing up to the president. Gasps.

Look, I said, trying to be diplomatic. I understand how Democrats see this. Democrats believe that these extremists have taken over the Republican Party, and they don’t like government much anyway, and–

“They can’t stand the fact that a black man is in the White House!” someone interjected.

That’s not true, I said. Oh, yes it is, they said….

The conversation was cut short by the sound of a glass tapping at the next table, for a toast. We never did come back to the question of whether I was a racist who could not stand a black man as president.

I doubt these folks thought of themselves as mean people. But I am certain many other conservatives have had similar interactions among liberals in elite, polite society. Worldly as they are, they have no clue.

Law Professor Stephen Bainbridge writes in response to Pollak:

Been there. Done that. I’ve never seen conservatives–other than TV talking heads on the boob tube– be as rude to liberals as some liberals are to us. Ever.

We’ve all encountered that.

Usually, it’s in a situation where the insult is just tossed into the flow of a conversation — almost always in a group setting where the perp feels emboldened – and then the conversation moves in other directions. The rude barb just becomes part of the landscape.

We’ve gone too long allowing a perjorative landscape.

It’s why the most Senior Democrats feel free to call us the worst possible names and taunt us in a demeaning manner. They receive no pushback from our Senior politicians for the venom spewing from their mouths. We’ve become The Grand Old Punching Bag Party.

Compare the rude, vicious terms from Obama and his spokespeople, and Senior Democrats such as Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Nancy Pelosi and others, with the gentlemanly behavior of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.

There is plenty of push back and name-calling on both sides at lower levels and on the blogosphere, but it’s qualitatively different when it comes from The White House and the Democratic Party House and Senate leadership.

When the leadership of the Republican Party does not push back against the leadership of the Democratic Party for the name-calling and taunts, it’s an invitation to more attacks, and it sets a national tone.

We’ve become punching bags. At dinner and at the highest political levels.

We need to do what Rudy Giuliani did to graffiti artists and squeegee guys, apply broken windows theory:

Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken. This is as true in nice neighborhoods as in rundown ones. Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing.

My resolution for this 6th year of Legal Insurrection is to confront liberal intolerance on the spot. No more broken windows at dinners. Senior Republican politicians should do the same, in Congress.

Some time ago, on another site, I created a term for them. TWANLOC. Those Who Are No Longer Our Countrymen. We do not speak the same language. We do not share a common history. We have diametrically opposite world views. We do not share a common culture. They hate us with a fervor that is literally religious. We share a common piece of territory, but they literally hate that territory. We are not of the same nation. History shows what happens when people that different and hostile are not allowed to separate peacefully.

1. How do we reorganize ourselves to fight back against the bullying tactics of the Stalinists?

2. How do we respond to an asshole who decides to direct his bullying against us in a social setting?

With respect to the first question, initially, you try to defeat the weak leaders in the party by supporting their opponent in the primary, and staying home in the general election. If those do not work, you leave the party. Most of all the Republican Party needs leaders who will fight, therefore it is a lifetime exercise in futility to support them

With respect to the second question, you tell the tormentor that he is full of hate, that you will not lower yourself to his level, thank the host and leave. A hush will fall over the room, and people will become very uncomfortable. Bill is right. You have to nip this kind of thing in the bud.

There were times in negotiations when certain Teamster negotiators would become vile and abusive. Rather than getting into a pissing contest, we would get up, walk out, and tell them to call us when they were ready to be civilized. In the case cited above, the tormentor would be a pariah by the end of the evening, if the victim did that. The host will call the next day and apologize, most likely. And they will not invite him to the next party. This is an attack, and the worst thing to do is argue, because that legitimatizes and intellectualizes the attacker. You do not want to do that. Action speaks louder than words, believe me.

Instead, I began to face questions: you really support what Boehner is doing?

Yes, I replied. He’s doing the right thing by standing up to the president. Gasps.

Look, I said, trying to be diplomatic. I understand how Democrats see this. Democrats believe that these extremists have taken over the Republican Party, and they don’t like government much anyway, and–

“They can’t stand the fact that a black man is in the White House!” someone interjected.

That’s not true, I said. Oh, yes it is, they said….
———————–
Casting pearls before swine.

What is the point?

He has no obligation to justify himself or his beliefs to them.

But that is the position they are putting him in.

He could launch a tough attack on Obama.

But given the tenor of the audience, he would become the pariah and they would pile on.

If I was forced to sit there through this bullshit, I would talk about brand Obama-Heges.

foxyladi14
October 13, 2013 at 9:54 am
Look she is STILL STANDING!!! 🙂
——————-
Yes! And she’s the only one to realize the historical significance of NJ overall, & particularly at this time, Frank Lautenberg who was last WWII vet to serve in Congress. Keep your eye out for coverage of her and Todd today in DC if they really make the Million Vet March event.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius gleefully told Jon Stewart this week that Obamacare will bring Western Civilization to its knees.
—————–
I love Kathleen. I really do. We are bring western civilization to its knees by offering a MARKET BASED STATEGY???

………………………………………?………………………………………………?……………………….?……………………………….?

FORCING INDIVIDUALS who do not want or need is market or pay a penalty based??? ya sure youtbetcha

EMPLOYER MANDATES are market based??? ya sure youbetcha

The importation of UNINSURABLE RISKS into the insurance plan is market based??? ya sure youbetcha

The eventual DOUBLING OF PREMIMUMS as a result is market based??? ya sure youbthecha.

The immediate 50% INCREASE IN DEDUCTIBLES as a result is market based? ya sure youbetcha.

Forcing individual to estimate and then PAY BACK tax incentives if they underestimate is market based???

Using the power of government to DESTROY the private insurance market is market based??? ya sure youbetcha.

To make an omlette, an egg must be broken—Vladimir Lenin.

Nevertheless, I like Kathleen. I just wish she would stop lying to us. Hatch may believe her, but I don’t.

This is the Navy Hymn (including verse 2 which is for the Marine Corps). The setting is the Naval Academy Annapolis, the rotunda of Bancroft Hall which is at the end of tree lined Scribbling Walk past the statue of the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh.

This building has the same architecture as many of the buildings in Washington. There are some magnificent Sistine Chapel type murals on the ceiling which you can see a glimpse of at the 4 minute mark which commemorate the battles of Midway and Coral Sea.

The only better place for this hymn would be the Naval Academy Chapel which where John Paul Jones is buried.

I met an old man at an Indian Casino just south of Seattle. He was wearing a jacket which gave the name of his ship and the date it was sunk at Coral Sea. He told me how horrible it was, jumping off his flaming ship into the dark water, and the sharks they had to contend with in the day or so that followed. It did something to him, because he ended up in navy hospitals, and was convinced that he was ministered to by the ice skater of that era Sonja Hennie. There were stories like that about Marlene Dietrich in Europe, but his story was most likely a delusional casualty of war.

et me say it again. The president confessed. It’s his express policy to punish innocent bystanders in order to score partisan points. That order has gone forth like a fatwa to the bureaucracy. And it is only when that policy blows up in his face that Obama becomes “very disturbed.”

When terrible things happened on George W. Bush’s watch — Katrina, Abu Ghraib, etc. — the immediate liberal response was to insist that Bush had in fact ordered or wanted the terrible things to happen.

Now we have a president openly admitting it — and no one seems to care.

Perhaps Sebelius should have said “for-profit strategy” rather than “market-based strategy”…. That would have been closer to the truth and may have pleased you more.

Rand Paul, using the case of competition with Walmarts to provide contact lenses or glasses at just pennies more than Walmarts, went on to claim that such free competition should apply to medicine generally.

Paul has to be delirious to make such a claim or proposal. As an eye surgeon, does he face any competition from Walmarts?

One of the fundamental principles of the free market economy is that each market is different, and free competition is another fundamental principle that implies that no one is forced to buy widgets when they can buy thingamajigs, or nothing, instead.

Neither of these fundamental principles apply to medicine. Medicine differs from all other markets in that people do not have a choice between a gall bladder operation and an appendectomy, or chemotherapy or brain surgery or whatever, whichever is cheapest or suits their fancy at a given time.

Even less would someone ask himself if he wanted to go to the movies, a restaurant, get eye surgery or treatment for chest pains, or just stay at home this evening.

This is what is special about the medical market: people may have a choice between which doctor or hospital they go to, yes; but beyond that, they don’t have free choice as you see it in all other markets.

This is what is fundamentally wrong with treating medicine with the same for-profit approach as the generic market for widgets and such. It is why medicine accounts for 17% of the American economy whereas it accounts for 10-12% of the economies of countries with organized medicine.

Sebelius may be exaggerating when she refers to “western civilization”. Put “America” in place of “western civilization” and she’s right.

Hillary news has been dominated in recent days by her call for an “adult conversation” about new intelligence and state surveillance links, and her support for Saudi women who want to overcome the ban on female driving.

I must say, my Google alert has been producing about three times as many articles about Hillary than it produced during her tenure as Secy of State. Many of those articles are repetitive; but it’s telling nonetheless, of how much more attention journalists are paying to her now and how little they were following her during her stint at State.

It was up to the Duke of York to present her with this year’s Chatham House Prize in recognition of her contribution to international diplomacy. In other words, the Brits got the message that was pretty much lost on the American public, while the US media are concentrating on Benghazi, which was the starting point for their recognition of Hillary.

The other constant in Hillary coverage is of course 2016. This gossip is not certain to help Hillary in 2016, as not only the Republicans (with Benghazi and anti-Hillary PACs) but also the left is giving her grief:

jeswezey
October 13, 2013 at 11:56 am
——————-
There is nothing they could do to this abomination that would please me. It combines the worst of all worlds, and leaves us footing the bill. They have tried in so many ways, beginning with CAP/climate change to Obamacare etc. to impose crushing economic burden on the middle class, and to drive up our national debt through the stratosphere. And all the while they blather about creating jobs for the middle class, while imposing regulatory burdens which have destroyed the incentive to start a new business and caused big companies to park 3 trillion in cash and caused a real unemployment rate of roughly 20%. We are headed for disaster, but all we hear about from big media is how great Obama is. That is because they are Washington based and that community is succeeding as a parasite does, until it finally kills the host. Obamacare is emblematic of these problems, whichcannot be solved by a change of nomenclature. I was simply pointing out the hypocrisy and cronic habitual lying that permeates ever corner of this corrupt administration.

Jeswezy: I need to get out of here before the whole financial scheme crashes. I was thinking of maybe a cheap hotel in Monmarte–if there are any. Or maybe Place Pigalle–more my speed. I always liked red windmills.

I want video of bringing barricades to WH. Don’t we all? Seriously I hope none go too far. It won’t take much to set this guy off. Name of Simon Legree came to my mind and I looked him up at wikipedia. Grave similarities.

“…Beginning at about 9:30 a.m., Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, as well as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, were among the luminaries in a crowd that chanted “Tear down these walls!” and sang “God Bless America” as well as other patriotic songs as they entered the memorial, which has been closed since the government shutdown that began Oct. 1….”http://www.wtop.com/959/3479186/Crowd-storms-World-War-II-Memorial

“…. Obamacare is emblematic of these problems, …. I was simply pointing out the hypocrisy and cronic habitual lying that permeates ever corner of this corrupt administration.

Please understand that I’m not disagreeing with you on any of these points, nor am I making the case for Obamacare by pointing out the failings of for-profit medicine.

The for-profit principle as it stood before the Affordable Care Act remains unchanged and even worsened by said Act; but anybody who wants to repeal the act should nonetheless keep in mind that something has to be done about for-profit health insurance, for-profit pharmaceuticals and for-profit medicine.

Thanks for the link on Hillary, Jezweezy. This article is classic neo-lefty-talking points. Although the author says Hillary is not her husband, his litany of complaints about Pres Clinton’s policies is meant to brand Hillary as the clone of Bill–which in his mind is not a good thing, since they are not left-of-center enough for him. And notice how there is no mention or criticism of Obama except when coupled with Hillary’s name, for example: “Now Clinton and Obama are selling neo-conservative foreign policy to an America ready to cede control to the international arena.” Here Hillary’s name comes first, as if she’s responsible for Obama’s failed foreign policy. Indeed, from this article you’d never even think Obama was currently the resident nor that his neo-liberal policies are a disaster. No sir, the author has to ignore the big elephant in the room — i.e. Obama and his failed policies — and pretend that Hillary/Bill are are somehow still running the show, for example: “It’s time to move away from the “New Democrat”/Third way-style of governing. Americans are thirsty for real change.”

This style of “argumentation” — i.e. rail against Pres Clinton and his policies, make them Hillary’s somehow, and ignore Obama altogether — is how the left shifts the blame onto the Clintons and away from Obama and his failed neo-liberal presidency.

“I need to get out of here before the whole financial scheme crashes. I was thinking of maybe a cheap hotel in Monmartre…”

LOL, well, that may be a solution. Seriously, though, I don’t know how long your money would hold out even in a cheap hotel. Maybe you could exercise a profession (if I understand correctly, you are an attorney and could earn a good living in Paris), in which case you would get full medical coverage with no deductibles for a maximum €500 per month, with spouse included. Furthermore, all serious lawyers live and work in the ritzy 8th and 16th arrondissements, if ever you find Pigalle distasteful.

Act III ends with partisan strife approaching levels not seen since the Russian Revolution. Leftists dressed up like Ninjas breaking buildings. Establishment leftists saying I am with them in spirit, please pass the caviar. A line of trucks blasting the deplorable new country western til our ears hurt–I was a fan of old country western but not this shit. Bob Costa and other faux conservatives blaming Ted Cruz for the breakdown in civil order. Mrs. Allen Greenspan doing what she does best–looking beautiful. The ghost of Rodney King rising up from the ashes with a rap sheet which stretches from New York to New Delhi with a close up camera shot–why can’t we all just get along. And Congressman Moran, in his cups, with his son in jail for voter fraud, veins popping out of his blue nose, warbling about bi partisanship and ald lang zyne, to an equally inebriated Jolt’n Joe Biden who was given the bums rush out of the debt ceiling talks–who sits there laughing just like he did in the vice presidential debate.

Act IV: Governor Christie. The answer to every maidens prayers. An 800 pound sack of shit slimmed down with sequester moneys to a svelte 550 pounds of solid whatever. How did he do it, inquiring minds want to know. He joined a health club with stimulus moneys and they hired those Japanese specialists who give massages to Kobi beef cattle to tenderize them. The perfect hatchet man to do what the elites have been itching to do–slash social security and inflate the currency. The man, the moment, the message–we must all share the misery. The only exception will be big media, the political class of which he is a part. I can see this now, quite clearly. Therefore, despite Benghazi–which don’t lets kid ourselves kiddies was a big fuck-up, we need to go with Hillary. I believe she will protect social security. And I know for a fact that Christie will not. My intuition tells me he is a thug. And when they say that cannot be he was a prosecutor, I am reminded of something Max Steuer who was the toast of the Manhattan defense bar nearly 100 years ago said on that subject: I could never be a prosecutor–they have a taste for blood.

Thanks for slamming that article. It’s not the first I’ve seen from the left. Apparently, the so-called “progressives” are pulling for Elizabeth Warren as a foil to Hillary, because she makes great inflammatory speeches against Wall Street.

In 2016, Hillary will be facing fire from both right and left. Such is the fate of a centrist. The fire from the left may keep her from the nomination, and the right (maybe the left too) will be against her in the general.

“anybody who wants to repeal the act should nonetheless keep in mind that something has to be done about for-profit health insurance, for-profit pharmaceuticals and for-profit medicine.”
******
The current system is worse than “for profit”, it’s rigged at a bi-partisan political level. Bush’s Part D Medicare, with no negotiations over drug prices, is a massive corporate welfare program and bankrupting Medicare. Same story with ACA and Pharma and insurance industry. The VA negotiates prices and usually pays less than 1/2 compared to Medicare. Our pure “socialized” medical system, the VA, also has significant problems. In an imperfect world, a mixed single payer and private/public health care delivery is probably the best option; if the lobbyists don’t write the laws.

“I need to get out of here before the whole financial scheme crashes. I was thinking of maybe a cheap hotel in Monmartre…”

LOL, well, that may be a solution. Seriously, though, I don’t know how long your money would hold out even in a cheap hotel. Maybe you could exercise a profession (if I understand correctly, you are an attorney and could earn a good living in Paris), in which case you would get full medical coverage with no deductibles for a maximum €500 per month, with spouse included. Furthermore, all serious lawyers live and work in the ritzy 8th and 16th arrondissements, if ever you find Pigalle distasteful.
————————
Well, that is certainly one idea. However, I do not speak French, am not a member of the Paris Bar Association, and I have no clients. Therefore, I will need to take that under advisement.

The other option would be to become a gigolo. There are some beautiful ladies of the evening in that venue, and seeing is believing. But for that I would need to get Andrea Mitchell to give me the name of her make-over agent. Someone who is capable of turning a sows ear into a silk purse. It has been known to happen.

“….In an imperfect world, a mixed single payer and private/public health care delivery is probably the best option; if the lobbyists don’t write the laws.”

Because everyone here knows I am a socialist renegade living in France, and therefore discredits most everything I say, I would never have dared making a statement like that: Actually, you are proposing the French system, except the French system is not purely single-payer (there are several insurers).

From early Sunday morning, Lee reported that the number vehicles on the roads have been building. Lee stated, “We got flags flying, horns honking, rigs, trucks and other vehicles stretching 10 miles along interstate 495 in Maryland. I cannot see an end to it, everyone has their flashers on.”

foxy, the trucker link is fascinating: According to GMN reporter Will Gonzalez, “A group of police with masks and full riot gear moved between us and the White House, but after the crowd shouted ‘shame on you’, the police backed away”.

“….There are some beautiful ladies of the evening in that venue, and seeing is believing. But for that I would need to get Andrea Mitchell to give me the name of her make-over agent….”

ROTFLMAO !!
—————
Notice I did not ask for the name of Sad Alan Greenspan’s make-up agent–you know the Mr. Irrational Exuberance in the flesh, the guy who had 38 economists reporting him at the fed but did not see the real estate bubble. His make-up agent is a mortician. I intend to stay away from him and them as long as possible. You can almost understand Andrea when you look at him . . . she’s only a bird in a gilded cage, etc. Those two Irish reprobates Biden and Moran could hum a few bars of this one:

President Obama is once again misleading people in a sad attempt to create a panic he hopes will be blamed on his opponents.

Moody’s has flatly stated our credit rating is not tied to the debt limit, and not raising it does not risk default.

“The government would continue to pay interest and principal on its debt even in the event that the debt limit is not raised, leaving its creditworthiness intact,” Moody’s Investor Services reports today.

The thugs who protect the political class do not recognize the constitution or the rights of ordinary Americans who seek to exercise their First Amendment right of free assembly and to petition government for a redress of grievances. Time will tell whether the American People prove to be the same kind of lap dogs as we see in big media.

The government has taken this page down, but what it depicted was the DC cops using night sticks against old women. It is hard to imagine what kind of threat these people posed to the elite political class, but they had their orders.

If you are interested, it can still be accessed (for now at least) through the link to the following comment at Larry Johnson’s site No Quarter, which is where I saw it:

kinthenorthwest
• 17 minutes ago

It has been reported by someone on FB that it went ugly guys ===A guy who is responsible for many film reports

CNN published an article this morning purposefully painting the Million Veterans’s March as a “group of conservatives” who are basically birthers and racists and hate Obama. They completely ignored that this was a march organized by veterans for veterans to reclaim their right to visit open air memorials that they mostly funded themselves. No where in this article does CNN even identify the name of the march:

Angered by the closure of national landmarks due to the partial government shutdown, a crowd of conservatives removed barricades Sunday at the World War II Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial as they rallied against President Barack Obama and Democrats for their role in the ongoing stalemate.

A “crowd of conservatives?”

The rally, billed as the “Million Vet March on the Memorials,” drew far fewer than a million people and evolved into a protest that resembled familiar tea party events from 2009, with yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” flags throughout the crowd and strong anti-Obama language from the podium and the audience.

“Billed as.” Ignore the veterans, classify it as a bunch of hateful racists.

One speaker went as far as saying the president was a Muslim and separately urged the crowd of hundreds to initiate a peaceful uprising.

Who? Crickets when Harry Reid called conservatives anarchists last week and other Democrats name-called conservatives as Nazis and murderers in their tantrum over spending.

The purpose of this article was to disenfranchise veterans (once again) by omitting their participation in the event and cast it as a hateful tea party rally. Let it be on record that a network is attack veterans as such.

A sharp reader caught a statistical problem with that much-cited NBC/WSJ poll that shows Republicans are getting whooped in the shutdown:

It’s true. Here is the complete poll with the sample, the questions, etc. On the very last page we get the breakdown of where the 800 respondents work.

govt-workers-poll

The wording of the question is broad enough to sweep in spouses of government workers and other situations in which the respondent themselves may not work for the government in some way, but someone closely related to them does.

1. Oversampling of Government Workers: Government workers heavily sampled, by more than twice the actual percentage of Americans who work for the government.

2. Oversampling of Democrats: Then let’s factor in the poll’s partisan sample, which was 43-32 Democrat, the percent that admits voting for Obama, which was 44 versus just 35 for Romney, and this looks like a left-heavy sample.

3. Bias of NBC: who stands to lose big if Obamacare is not rolled out, because they have been given the role of explaining Obamacare to the public–and so, by their reckoning, this will bring millions to their news room.

It is a mystery to me why Republicans do not point out these anomalies.

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama met in the Oval Office Friday with Malala Yousafzai, the Pakastani girl who was shot in the head on her school bus by Taliban gunmen for criticizing their rule, including banning education for girls.
The White House says the first couple invited Malala — the youngest ever nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize — to the White House “to thank her for her inspiring and passionate work on behalf of girls education in Pakistan.”

In a statement, the White House says the United States “joins with the Pakistani people and so many around the world to celebrate Malala’s courage and her determination to promote the right of all girls to attend school and realize their dreams.”

In a statement released after the meeting, Malala said she was honored to meet with Obama, but that she told him she’s worried about the effect of U.S. drone strikes. (The White House statement didn’t mention that part.)

“I thanked President Obama for the United States’ work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees,” she said in the statement. “I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact.”

Pursuant to the back-and-forth yesterday about for-profit health care and the (negative) effects the Affordable Care Act has had on it, there is an Op-Ed in “Honda Barn” (??) to the effect that the “GOP made the Affordable Care Act complicated”:

Oct. 8 — To the Editor:

Republicans already have their compromise.

When Hillary Clinton proposed her universal health care program, it was the result of an exhaustive study of the highly successful universal health care programs in use by all the other developed nations of the world. After careful examination, she combined their best practices into her proposal. It was a single-provider system and was elegant in its simplicity.

The Republicans could not accept that. They insisted that the insurance companies had to administer any health care program. In the spirit of compromise, the Democrats agreed to this proposal in order to get the Affordable Care Act passed. Both parties agreed to it and it was signed into law. The Supreme Court also agreed.

Now, the Republicans call the ACA “Obamacare” and deride it for being too complicated. They are correct. It is too complicated and unnecessarily so; but that is the creation of the Republican Party.

Bill Kingston, New Castle

The above view point is another “blame the Republicans” diatribe to shift the blame from Democrats, ignoring the fact that zero Republicans and a sizable portion of Democrats too, voted against the ACA. How the Republicans can be blamed for something they tried to vote down is beyond me. Besides, the Rs did have some suggestions that were conveniently ignored by the all-powerful Dims of the time.

***********

In other news, a top Dem in Bucks County PA has a lot of nice and insightful things to say about Hillary and is raring to back her in 2016:

Only Fox got it right:
“…In a mean-spirited fit of selfish anger, Barack Obama has shut down our nation’s war memorials,” march organizers said in a press release. “And he has declared open war on our honored veterans. The World War II memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Obama has shut them all down to force his will on the House of Representatives and, frankly, to get revenge on the American people who oppose ObamaCare and his other naked power grabs.”http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/13/vets-march-on-washington-roll-into-wwii-memorial-protest-outside-white-house/

Last night, the organization formerly known as President Obama’s reelection campaign, Organizing for Action, held an Obamacare event in Greenville, South Carolina. The event was called “Obamacare and You!”

“Let’s discuss what this Affordable Care Act means for you and your community. This session will help you understand the benefits and will equip you to spread the word about the benefits of Obamacare in your community. Come out and get the facts!!,” the event advertisement said.

But it wasn’t widely attended. Only two people, in addition to the two organizers, showed up.

The Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) system allows recipients of government food stamps to purchase goods using a digital card with a set spending limit, but for a few hours over the weekend, that limit disappeared for many users visiting Walmart stores in Louisiana.

Walmart and local police in Springhill and Mansfield confirmed to CBS affiliate KSLA that officers were called into the stores to help maintain order Saturday as shoppers swept through the aisles at two stores and bought as much as they could carry.

Xerox, which hosts some of the infrastructure used by the EBT card system, told KSLA that a power outage during a routine maintenance test caused the temporary glitch.

Walmart workers phoned their corporate headquarters to ask how they should handle all the shoppers with unlimited, government-funded spending limits, and were told to keep the registers ringing.

Here’s a very important caveat to the inflammatory FoxNews paragraph I posted here early today.
The root organizer of the 1M Vet March is not even happy that Sarah and Ted and Mike or any other politicians joined them as is posted here:
The political agenda put forth by a local organizer in Washington DC was not in alignment with our message. We feel disheartened that some would seek to hijack the narrative for political gain. The core principle is about all Americans honoring Veterans in a peaceful and apolitical manner http://1mvetmarch.wordpress.com/.

I now must state that Fox’s source is suspect. Perhaps it is that local organizer. I’m not going to track it any further, but just had a need to state what’s what here.

The other constant in Hillary coverage is of course 2016. This gossip is not certain to help Hillary in 2016, as not only the Republicans (with Benghazi and anti-Hillary PACs) but also the left is giving her grief.
&&&&&&

The author of the ‘Here’s the Case Against Hillary Clinton in 2016’, Sean McElwee, looks like he’s still deciding which college to attend.

And he asks the following questions of Hillary / Bill, yet does he not realize that these same arguments apply to Obama???

He writes:

The left must ask itself some crucial questions: Could Clinton really tackle inequality by strengthening unions, raising the minimum wage and instituting a highly progressive tax system? Could the a member of the family who rented out the Lincoln bedroom to donors really tackle campaign finance reform? Could the woman who made the case for Iraq keep us from the next neo-con fraud? Will Clinton work undermine the overwhelming power of corporations and regulate the big banks that have financed her campaigns? I’m skeptical. America doesn’t need more establishment candidates; we need a fearless leader who will turn us away from the greedy consumerism that is tearing apart our society in a favor of empathy and sustainability.”

* Could the man who made the case against the Iraq, but then voted ‘present’ as senator, and who escalated W’s policies of drone killings and Guatanamo detentions, keep us from the next neo-con fraud?

* Did Obama undermine the overwhelming power of corporations and regulate the big banks that have financed his campaigns?

&&&
Sean ends with, “I’m skeptical. America doesn’t need more establishment candidates; we need a fearless leader who will turn us away from the greedy consumerism that is tearing apart our society in a favor of empathy and sustainability.”

Sean, does that apply to your golden calf candidate of 2008 and 2012???

A woman with an outstanding warrant for her arrest is currently serving as an Obamacare “navigator” in Lawrence, Kansas.

Rosilyn Wells — the Director of Outreach and Enrollment for the Heartland Community Health-care Center (HCHC) – is “the only full-time Affordable Care Act navigator in Lawrence,” according to the Lawrence Journal-World.

Wells was certified as an Obamacare navigator despite her financial history, which includes a bankruptcy in 2003, a 2007 civil charge from a local check cashing business called Midwest Checkrite for writing a bad check, being more than $1700 behind on her state tax bill, and having an outstanding arrest warrant in nearby Shawnee County. Wells lives and works in Douglass County.

Reached by phone, The Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office would not elaborate on the specific charges related to Wells’ arrest warrant.

Navigators are creations of the federal government and they are paid to work closely with consumers — and their personal information — to help them navigate the newly-created Obamacare exchanges.

The Obamacare navigator program has fallen under heavy criticism for its privacy pitfalls, with the House Oversight Committee issuing a report only two weeks ago which warned that navigators would not be properly vetted to protect consumers.

The report pointed out navigators would have access to all sorts of personal data.

“[T]he main concern for consumers is the heightened risk of identity theft and financial loss from a poorly managed outreach campaign,” the Oversight Committee report said. “Navigators and Assisters will come into contact with a plethora of personally identifiable information (PII), including an applicant’s Social Security number, date of birth and income, as well as the PII of everyone in an applicant’s household.”/

The Obama administration’s decision not to require background checks for navigators compounds the privacy risks, the Oversight Committee wrote.

“In part, substantial risks remain because the Administration decided not to require background checks and fingerprinting of individuals hired by Navigator and Assister organizations,” the committee wrote. “Under the Administration’s plan, unless states have already taken actions to protect their citizens, Navigators and Assisters are not prohibited from hiring convicted felons, including individuals convicted of identity theft or fraud.”

Additionally, Wells’ dual role as Outreach Director for Heartland Community Health Center (HCHC) in Lawrence and as the sole Obamacare navigator for the City of Lawrence could represent a substantial conflict of interest.

The federal navigator program has taken great pains to avoid hiring navigators who are in a position to refer business to their place of employment, according to Katrina McGivern of the Kansas Association for the Medically Underserved in Topeka, KS, the primary care association of Kansas and a federal navigator grantee in the state.

“Certified navigators are required to help any consumer who requires assistance in the community,” McGivern told The Daily Caller, “whether they are a patient of the specific facility or not. Navigators are not allowed to refer consumers to any specific location to receive care. They are allowed to educate on options in their area.”

The launch of federal government’s Obamacare insurance exchange, Healthcare.gov, has been plagued with delays, errors, and poor website design, even prompting USA Today to call it an “inexcusable mess” and a “nightmare”. Now comes another example of why the website’s reputation is in tatters. Buried in the source code of Healthcare.gov is this sentence that could prove embarrassing: “You have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system.” Though not visible to users and obviously not intended as part of the terms and conditions, the language is nevertheless a part of the underlying code for the “Terms & Conditions” page on the site.

After creating an account on Healthcare.gov, users are asked to click an “I accept” button under some routine Terms & Conditions prohibiting unauthorized attempts to upload information or change the website. Once users click the button, they may proceed to shop for insurance and enter detailed personal information. However, when the Terms & Conditions page is visible, the hidden sentence mentioned above along with several others can be seen by using a web browser’s “View Source” feature. A screen grab below shows the visible Terms & Conditions page along with a simultaneous view of the code underlying it:

The full portion of the code which does not appear on the visible page displayed for users reads as follows:

You have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system. At any time, and for any lawful Government purpose, the government may monitor, intercept, and search and seize any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system. Any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system may be disclosed or used for any lawful Government purpose. [The sentence beginning “To continue” also appears again, but is only visible once on the page as displayed for users.]

Mandatory health coverage could be the catalyst for a new generational war.

snip…

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OMG…this is a no brainer…are the dims crazy??? what is wrong with them?

Let me get this straight…no background checks, no fingerprints, navigators hired with current outstanding arrest warrants for writing bad checks…and since no background checks…the O admin and dims have no idea if these “navigators” have a criminal background in identity theft or are planning a future in the very expansive and lucrative business of ‘identity theft’ that even the IRS cannot get a handle on and has lost millions of dollars paying out fraudulant payments…

I just want to scream…”what is wrong with the O admin and the subserviant Democratic party?”

…this sounds like an individual would have the right to refuse just based on the faulty and failing safety of their private information…what will happen to the obvious victims of this sure as hell coming down the road all for trying to get healthcare…(this is INSANE)

I hope the Clintons are not backing this fiasco and Hillary has enough sense to make a break to acknowledge the threat this poses to every single american’s financial and personal securitythat dares go near that failing website…this should be a great issue for her to differentiate and seperate herself from the O admin…

Michelle Obama’s celebrated White House garden is overrun with weeds and wildlife — yet another victim of the shutdown, according to a popular blogger on all things food-related at the White House.

“The vegetables filling the 1,500 square-foot plot are now rotting away on the vines and in the boxed beds, thanks to the mandate for ‘minimal maintenance’ placed on the skeletal crew of National Park Service gardeners who remain on duty at 1600 Penn.,” reports Eddie Gehman Kohan, the creator of Obama Foodorama, a website that chronicles the administration’s food initiatives.

This lack of maintenance has had a “dramatic impact” on the kitchen garden, which is usually meticulously cared for, Gehman Kohan says. Mushrooms and weeds are popping up. The tomatoes and basil are out of control. The sweet potatoes have been relinquished to “worm food.”

A White House source told Obama Foodorama that under the shutdown gardeners are not allowed to harvest any of the crops. They are only allowed to water the garden and remove trash — restrictions that preclude raking, weeding, or clearing out dead leaves. Why don’t they get some of the Obots to volunteer to take care of the garden…they would rather see the food rot and die???

Wildlife are “having a field day,” Gehman Kohan reports. The squirrels, in particular, seem to have gotten the memo that no one is tending to the garden. “The squirrels are always a problem in the garden, eating the berry crop in the summer months. But they’re now kids in a candy store, gorging themselves.”

The First Lady’s office was unavailable for comment — both voicemail boxes are full, and the media email account has an auto reply indicating that staff are not available to respond due to “greatly reduced staffing.”

According to Obama Foodorama, White House Supervisory Horticulturalist Jim Adams remains on the job, but he is not permitted to go beyond the minimal maintenance restrictions. Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses, who is furloughed, usually holds weekly garden weeding sessions, but those have also been canceled during the appropriations hiatus.

The plight of the garden is not just a culinary concern — though the White House does regularly feature the produce and herbs in State Dinners and in high-profile gifts — but also a community one as a portion of the crop is regularly donated to Miriam’s Kitchen, a non-profit serving the homeless. Every fall, the White House donates about 500 pounds of garden produce to Miriam’s.

“Amidst the wildness, there’s good news: The White House is apparently expecting the shutdown to end before the month is out,” Gehman Kohan writes. “Miriam’s President and CEO Scott Schenkelberg on Thursday told Obama Foodorama that he’d just been advised by one of the First Lady’s aides to expect a delivery of Kitchen Garden vegetables ‘at the end of the harvest season,’ sometime in late October. That means one thing: The shutdown will be over.”

With all the uncertainty in Washington over the shutdown, the promised garden harvest might be the best signal yet.

Obamacare’s Website Is Crashing Because It Doesn’t Want You To Know How Costly Its Plans Are

A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare’s federally-sponsored insurance exchange is crashing. Healthcare.gov forces you to create an account and enter detailed personal information before you can start shopping. This, in turn, creates a massive traffic bottleneck, as the government verifies your information and decides whether or not you’re eligible for subsidies. HHS bureaucrats knew this would make the website run more slowly. But they were more afraid that letting people see the underlying cost of Obamacare’s insurance plans would scare people away.

HHS didn’t want users to see Obamacare’s true costs

“Healthcare.gov was initially going to include an option to browse before registering,” report Christopher Weaver and Louise Radnofsky in the Wall Street Journal. “But that tool was delayed, people familiar with the situation said.” Why was it delayed? “An HHS spokeswoman said the agency wanted to ensure that users were aware of their eligibility for subsidies that could help pay for coverage, before they started seeing the prices of policies.” (Emphasis added.)

As you know if you’ve been following this space, Obamacare’s bevy of mandates, regulations, taxes, and fees drives up the cost of the insurance plans that are offered under the law’s public exchanges. A Manhattan Institute analysis I helped conduct found that, on average, the cheapest plan offered in a given state, under Obamacare, will be 99 percent more expensive for men, and 62 percent more expensive for women, than the cheapest plan offered under the old system. And those disparities are even wider for healthy people.

That raises an obvious question. If 50 million people are uninsured today, mainly because insurance is too expensive, why is it better to make coverage even costlier?

Political objectives trumped operational objectives

The answer is that Obamacare wasn’t designed to help healthy people with average incomes get health insurance. It was designed to force those people to pay more for coverage, in order to subsidize insurance for people with incomes near the poverty line, and those with chronic or costly medical conditions.

But the laws’ supporters and enforcers don’t want you to know that, because it would violate the President’s incessantly repeated promise that nothing would change for the people that Obamacare doesn’t directly help. If you shop for Obamacare-based coverage without knowing if you qualify for subsidies, you might be discouraged by the law’s steep costs.

So, by analyzing your income first, if you qualify for heavy subsidies, the website can advertise those subsidies to you instead of just hitting you with Obamacare’s steep premiums. For example, the site could advertise plans that “$0″ or “$30″ instead of explaining that the plan really costs $200, and you’re getting a subsidy of $200 or $170. But you’ll have to be at or near the poverty line to gain subsidies of that size; most people will either not qualify for a subsidy, or qualify for a small one that, net-net, doesn’t make up for the law’s cost hikes.

This political objective—masking the true underlying cost of Obamacare’s insurance plans—far outweighed the operational objective of making the federal website work properly. Think about it the other way around. If the “Affordable Care Act” truly did make health insurance more affordable, there would be no need to hide these prices from the public.

Subsidy verification created a traffic bottleneck

Comparable private-sector e-commerce sites, like eHealthInsurance.com, allow you to shop for plans and compare prices simply by entering your age and your ZIP code. After you’ve selected a plan you like, you fill out an on-line application. That substantially winnows down the number of people who rely on the site for network-intensive tasks.

The federal government’s decision to force people to apply before shopping, Weaver and Radnofsky write, “proved crucial because, before users can begin shopping for coverage, they must cross a busy digital junction in which data are swapped among separate computer systems built or run by contractors including CGI Group Inc., the healthcare.gov developer, Quality Software Services Inc., a UnitedHealth Group Inc. unit; and credit-checker Experian PLC. If any part of the web of systems fails to work properly, it could lead to a traffic jam blocking most users from the marketplace.”

Jay Angoff, a former federal official at the agency that oversees the exchange, told the Journal that he was surprised by the decision. “People should be able to get quotes” without entering all of that information upfront.

Weaver and Radnofsky say that the core problem stems from “the slate of registration systems [that] intersect with Oracle Identity Manager, a software component embedded in a government identity-checking system.” The main Healthcare.gov web page collects information using the CGI Group technology. Then that data is transferred to a system built by Quailty Software Services. QSS then sends data to Experian, the credit-history firm. But the key “identity management system” employed by QSS was designed by Oracle, and according to the Journal’s sources, the Oracle software isn’t playing nicely with the other information systems.

Oracle hotly denies these claims. “Our software is the identical product deployed in most of the world’s most complex systems…our software is running properly,” said an Oracle spokeswoman in a statement.

‘It’s awful, just awful’

Robert Pear and colleagues at the New York Times have a piece up today detailing the serious problems with the federal exchange, problems that may get worse, not better. They confirm what we already knew: that the Obama administration refused to delay the implementation of the exchanges, despite the well-known problems, because they were afraid of the political blowback. “Former government officials say the White House, which was calling the shots, feared that any backtracking would further embolden Republican critics who were trying to repeal the health care law.”

As I documented last week, IT and insurance experts have been saying for at least eight months that implementation of the exchanges was going badly, that as early as February officials were warning of a “third world experience.” The Times’ sources are just as blunt. “These are not glitches,” said one insurance executive. “The extent of the problems is pretty enormous. At the end of our [conference calls with the administration], people say, ‘It’s awful, just awful.’”

“We foresee a train wreck,” said another executive in a February interview with the Times. “We don’t have the IT specifications. The level of angst in health plans is growing by leaps and bounds. The political people in the administration do not understand how far behind they are.” Richard Foster, the former chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said last week that “so much testing of the new system was so far behind schedule, I was not confident it would work well.”

Henry Chao, the deputy chief information officer at CMS who made the “third world experience” comment, was told by his superiors that failure to meet the October 1 launch deadline “was not an option,” according to the Times.

White House knowingly chose to court disaster

Think about it. It’s quite possible that much of this disaster could have been avoided if the Obama administration had been willing to be open with the public about the degree to which Obamacare escalates the cost of health insurance. If they had, then a number of the problems with the exchange’s software architecture would have been avoided. But that would require admitting that the “Affordable Care Act” was not accurately named.

They knew that their people on the front lines, people like Henry Chao, were worried that the exchanges would get botched. They saw the Congressional Research Service memorandum detailing that the administration has missed half of the statutory deadlines assigned by the law. But they were more afraid of the P.R. disaster of disclosing Obamacare’s high premiums than they were of the P.R. disaster of crashing websites. What you see is the result.

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O admin and the dims are extremely irresponsible…they tried to pull a fast one and it backfired and now everyone can see what a mess this is…

Lonegan’s had some bad luck recently but after experiences yesterday with FoxNews, I’m hesitant to post without double-checking. This one here, seems to pan out … as far as media responsibility goes. Another convenient death announced by a candidate’s campaign staff just prior to an important election:

This premiere source of NJ news did not fail to include the following in its announcement:

“Cary A. Booker was born on December 10, 1936, and moved to New Jersey in 1969. He spent most of his professional career at IBM and was happily married to Carolyn Booker for 49 years,” city spokesman James Allen said in a statement. “Mayor Booker’s father was an inspiration to him and someone the mayor has often credited with being a principal reason for him entering public service.”
The mayor, who is running for a vacant U.S. Senate seat against Republican Steve Lonegan, could not be reached for comment. His staff said he has suspended all campaign events.
A North Carolina native, Cary Booker has figured prominently in his son’s personal narrative and was often mentioned in the mayor’s speeches and stories.
When Cary Booker and his wife moved to Harrington Park, in Bergen County, to raise their family, they faced discrimination in the predominantly white community, Mayor Booker has often said.
One real estate agent who refused to sell the family a home let a dog loose on Cary Booker when he visited the man’s office with a lawyer, the mayor recalled in a recent speech at Stanford University, his alma mater.
“He sicks a dog on my dad,” Booker said in the speech. “Now, the size of the dog has changed over the years. My father now insists it was spawn from Hell, it was Cujo. My mom will whisper to me, ‘It was just Toto.’”
Booker also routinely cites advice his father gave him through the years…..
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Re FoxNews, for a few reasons, I wonder if they’ve been hacked. OFA types were not happy to learnt Megyn Kelly’s great ratings.

Cairo, Egypt­Seems like President Barack Obama is taking on the role of Samson in the famous biblical story, bringing the temple down on everyone’s head after the collapse of his popularity and the exposure of his schemes to enable the extremists in Egypt.

After Obama’s defeat at the hands of Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the Egyptians­which he still refuses to admit­Obama continues to punish Egypt and its army.

In Obama’s failure to avoid an economic crisis in America, how is it he has time for War Games in Egypt?

In a few minutes, House Republicans will meet in the Capitol’s basement. The chief topic of conversation: the emerging Senate deal. But before the meeting even begins, House conservatives are bashing it behind the scenes, and they’re pushing leadership to reject the compromise. A flurry of phone calls and meetings last night and early this morning led to that consensus among the approximately 50 Republicans who form the House GOP’s right flank. They’re furious with Senate Republicans for working with Democrats to craft what one leading tea-party congressman calls a “mushy piece of s**t.” Another House conservative warns, “If Boehner backs this, as is, he’s in trouble.”

Adam Weldzius, a nurse practitioner, considers himself better informed than most when it comes to the inner workings of health insurance. But even he wasn’t prepared for the pocketbook hit he’ll face next year under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

If the 33-year-old single father wants the same level of coverage next year as what he has now with the same insurer and the same network of doctors and hospitals, his monthly premium of $233 will more than double. If he wants to keep his monthly payments in check, the Carpentersville resident is looking at an annual deductible for himself and his 7-year-old daughter of $12,700, a more than threefold increase from $3,500 today.

My wife and I just got our updates from Kaiser telling us what our 2014 rates will be. Her monthly has been $168 this year, mine $150. We have a high deductible. We are generally healthy people who don’t go to the doctor often. I barely ever go. The insurance is in case of a major catastrophe.

Well, now, because of Obamacare, my wife’s rate is gong to $302 per month and mine is jumping to $284.

I am canceling insurance for us and I am not paying any [expletive] penalty. What the hell kind of reform is this?

Oh, ok, if we qualify, we can get some government assistance. Great. So now I have to jump through another hoop to just chisel some of this off. And we don’t qualify, anyway, so what’s the point?

……………………

we told you, you didnt listen, you fuckers lauded it and would have sucked off Obama for a cheeseburger….well here is your payoff, enjoy your hike you idiots.

Wow, that does certainly sound like running is a real possibility. I read a headline last week that said Biden had decided he wouldn’t run if Hillary did (didn’t read article). Saw another today saying that Biden might declare his candidacy early to get the jump on Hillary. I’m sure he’ll run if he thinks he has a chance in hell of winning. But, if he runs, there had damn well better be just as much concern and snide commentary about his age as has been expressed about Hillary’s. Joe is older than she – and not half as energetic, gutsy, or lucid.

It’ll be interesting to see how Terry fares in Virginia with Hillary stumping for him. The Pubs I hear discussing the race really don’t like him – even more than they don’t like other Dems.